The Royal Navy's New Mission...

abc123

Banned
I didn't phrase that last paragraph well what I should have said is military owned aircraft. When an airliner is retired for economic reasons the aircraft itself may have many more years life left the military not having to make a profit can exploit those extra years where an airline cannot.

What aircraft would I select? You're right I would chose one of the long range Airbuses I would prefer the A340 aircraft for the extra redundancy of four engines but that is likely to be too expensive so I would go for the A330. (This is what the RAF has on order for the VC10-Tristar replacement Airbus is building a dedicated aircraft for the Tanker/Transport role).

Why hang cruise missiles of the aircraft? Responce time. A long range jet aircraft can circumnavigate the world in a day giving the ability to get within cruise range of a target within hours of a crises. A ship may take weeks to come into range of a target giving them time to prepare. That time delay may well cost British lives.


So, if I'm not wrong, you want a fleet of at least 30 tanker-transport aircrafts ( like A330 ) that can also fire few cruise missiles from missile pilons under wings?

And about responce time, when was the last war where Britain had 24 hours or 2-3 days to respond?

And target will prepare for war against UK, that's for sure, but in absence of very capable and strong opponent, they can't harm Arsenal Ship ( 1000 miles away, even if they can find his location, and because it can be allmost communications passive ship finding such ship is damn hard thing to do ) while spotting/intercepting large high flying ( if we want large range of missiles ) aircraft is much easier.
 
I am impressed...

...I came home from 11 hours of Tesco and found an excellent discussion - you are both taking the idea and running with it. And generating almost 30 viewings per post.

We must summarise current agreed thought in this discussion at the end of this week in order to proceed further. I thought of two carriers (QEII and POW) - is this third one HMS Ocean?
 
My concern is that if the British forgo the combined armoured blitzkrieg capability in favour of a light expeditionary force structure the very next war will be one where the only thing Britain needs is an armoured corps and a fighter/bomber group. This is exactly the sort of thinking that in 1966 saw the RN start to shrink from 4 fleet carriers to 2 light carriers to fight exactly the sort of war that the 1966 review said wouldn't happen.

Balance is, and always was, the key.
 
My concern is that if the British forgo the combined armoured blitzkrieg capability in favour of a light expeditionary force structure the very next war will be one where the only thing Britain needs is an armoured corps and a fighter/bomber group. This is exactly the sort of thinking that in 1966 saw the RN start to shrink from 4 fleet carriers to 2 light carriers to fight exactly the sort of war that the 1966 review said wouldn't happen.

Balance is, and always was, the key.

But do all the armoured units really need to be regulars now we don't have to garrison Northern West Germany. A small regular cadre with a sizable reserve force would meet most of Britains needs. The regulars would provide an opposing force for the TA to train against an a solid professional core to build the TA units around, while the constant training against the TA force would keep the Regulars skills at a very high level. As I said before though this sort of araingement could only work if the TA soldiers civillian jobs were protected when they were deployed.

Its the same set up I've been proposing for the landbased airpower. A small highly trained regular force backed up by a larger reserve force. With my tanker/transport/cruise missile carrier force the bulk of the personnel would be reservists with a solid core of regulars to insure the units are as well run and trained as a regular unit would be. The ground crews would also be built on the same principles.

In a way I'm going back to how Trenchard set up the RAF in the twenties. He described the way he set up the RAF, Auxillary Airforce and Volunteer Reserves as being like building a cottage with the foundations of a castle, by which I think he ment that the regular airforce would be able to expand rapidly if the need arose by mobilising the reserves. History proved him right on that at least.
 
But do all the armoured units really need to be regulars now we don't have to garrison Northern West Germany. A small regular cadre with a sizable reserve force would meet most of Britains needs. The regulars would provide an opposing force for the TA to train against an a solid professional core to build the TA units around, while the constant training against the TA force would keep the Regulars skills at a very high level. As I said before though this sort of araingement could only work if the TA soldiers civillian jobs were protected when they were protected when they were deployed.

This is a good idea as long as you're sure you won't need these types of forces at short notice. If the coming war ends up being a "come as you are" affair where you don't have 6 months to bring the reservists up to speed before deploying, it's less satisfactory. Along the same lines it also presumes that the TA soldiers can be pulled out of their civilian employment more or less at will, and although that might be the case I'm not entirely sure it would be received in a supportive light if there wasn't a clear, obvious threat to the UK.

Would you accept a modification to the idea? Instead of having only cadre staff as Regulars, let's assume there is a small Regular force based around let's say an armoured division, itself composed of three brigades (each of one armoured battalion, two mechanised battalions, an artillery regiment, an engineer regiment, air defence and all the usual supporting arms). At any time one brigade will be acting as trainers for the TA units conducting their own training; another will be on "active" status as a rapid response force; and the third will be in the "quiet" phase of the cycle doing repairs and maintenance, integrating new recruits, and giving leave more liberally. After 6 months they rotate roles and start all over again.
This has the advantage that there is a rapid response force available at any time if needed, and it can be deployed without robbing the TA of cadre staff or requiring partly-trained forces to be committed. It also provides a structure for expansion of the Regulars if needed (each Regular brigade becomes the core of a new division, it's personnel spread out to provide cadre for the newly formed units).

There are other nations which have had to deal with reductions in defence spending, and they have generally come to the conclusion that while reserves are useful, they take too long to reach a deployable standard in time of crisis and that they are more useful as a supplement to the regulars rather than a replacement for them. I'm thinking particularly of the New Zealand experience post-2000, where the reserve formations provide round-out units in case of mobilisation but otherwise the emphasis is on having a full-strength and capable RRF (Ready Reaction Force). There's also been a move towards making it easier for TF personnel to take a turn in the regulars if they wish.

The same style of organisation might be possible for RAF units as well, although I'm less familiar with their roles and requirements.
 

abc123

Banned
My concern is that if the British forgo the combined armoured blitzkrieg capability in favour of a light expeditionary force structure the very next war will be one where the only thing Britain needs is an armoured corps and a fighter/bomber group. This is exactly the sort of thinking that in 1966 saw the RN start to shrink from 4 fleet carriers to 2 light carriers to fight exactly the sort of war that the 1966 review said wouldn't happen.

Balance is, and always was, the key.

Well, I did say that Britain would keep Army as per current Defence Review ( 5+1 large brigades ).
 

abc123

Banned
I'm not quite sure, but IIRC British Territorial Army isn't really so bad that it needs 6 months to train to be as good as proffesionals. For God's sake, you can train total civilians in 6 months for allmost any military duty in line units.
Maybe a month or two, maximum.

As I allready said, current British Army plans of about 5 mixed brigades ( each with one Armoured, 2 Mechanised and 2 light Infantry Regiments/Battalions, 1 Artillery and other supporting forces, each with 5-6000 soldiers ) and one Airborne Brigade are IMO pretty much enough for most of British needs.

And that should be the core.

Now, discharged soldiers from professional units should form second tier- like US Army Reserve.
And Territotial Army should form third tier.
Ratio of about 3:2 for Regular Army.

That should be enough.

And there you have, all sort of units, wide range of capabilities, from armoured and mechanised for high-intensity operations to light infantry for peacekeeping and airborne and Royal Marines ( and SF ) for rapid reaction.
One of smaller armies, yes, of course, but also, man for man, the best. And not quite the enemy against you would like to fight, not even if you are much more numerous.
;)
 

abc123

Banned
Here's my proposal for Arsenal Ship ( I know that my drawing skills are BAD ), I put VLS on cheapest thing available, future MARS tanker ( it should cost under 200 millions USD per ship, without VLS and missiles ), OFC I didn't bother to exactly calculate numbers, you can do that if you want, but only to show you a general idea. ;)


Link for picture:

http://www.dumpt.com/img/viewer.php?file=x9dvp6gjo5te69bn0u8m.jpg


My estimates are that such ship can carry about 250 VLS cells, so with say 2 million USD for single Tomahawk missile and another 50 millions for VLS cells and with some other things done, I think that you can have one such ship for about 1 billion USD max.
 
Does your Arsenal ship have to be on the surface? You could get the same loadout buy modifying a Vanguard class ssbn, or if like me you don't like single use platforms you could modify the design of the Astute class SSN to include say a dozen VLS on each boat. Alternatively though its not an option I would chose you could build a dedicated SSGK with an air independant system. A benefit of that would be it could get close in shore and the cost of the essel would be reduced by using conventional propulsion.

I also wonder if RFA Argus could be converted, or a newer containership. They would have a large deck area that could be used and have modest crew requirments. Another option might be to invest in mobile land launchers. If it looks like mass vollies of cruise are needed they could be driven on to a lorry ferry and launched when the ship gets into range.
 

abc123

Banned
Does your Arsenal ship have to be on the surface? You could get the same loadout buy modifying a Vanguard class ssbn, or if like me you don't like single use platforms you could modify the design of the Astute class SSN to include say a dozen VLS on each boat. Alternatively though its not an option I would chose you could build a dedicated SSGK with an air independant system. A benefit of that would be it could get close in shore and the cost of the essel would be reduced by using conventional propulsion.

I also wonder if RFA Argus could be converted, or a newer containership. They would have a large deck area that could be used and have modest crew requirments. Another option might be to invest in mobile land launchers. If it looks like mass vollies of cruise are needed they could be driven on to a lorry ferry and launched when the ship gets into range.


Well, it doesn't necesarrily have to be on surface, I choose the surface mainly because of much lower cost, after all, such Vanguard class SSGN could easily cost about 3-4 billions.
And while I admitt that such SSGN is better solution, it isn't better than 3-4 Arsenal Ships.

About large SSK, well, that is cheaper, but again not cheaper enough, and I would try to have nuclear-only submarine fleet. It's cheaper to maintain them.
Because large enough to carry VLS SSK could cost well over a billion ( especially after 20+ years of gap in UK SSK building ) plus missiles, maybe even 2 billions.

Surface launchers like Gryphon are intresting and probably cheap, but do have 2 important disadvantages:
1. they depend on surface base, so they can't be used from sea
2. RN is certainly much more important Service here, so I doubt that they wuld let Army to have control over such important system

RFA Argus could IMO be easily converted and since such ships wouldn't sail much ( except in case of real thing ) old age of Argus wouldn't be a problem.
 
This is all a bit daft talking about an arsenal ship with 250 VLS for the RN. Even at its maximum reserve prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq the MOD only had around 100 Tomahawks and went through them pretty damn fast. Even during the 2011 intervention in Libya the RN only fired 2 out of the 100 or so Tomahawks launched by NATO. While Britain could afford such a ship, the costs of equiping it with 250 missiles would be so vast (including suitable reserves) and would ultimately only lead to a small number of otherwise inflexible hulls.

Russell
 

abc123

Banned
This is all a bit daft talking about an arsenal ship with 250 VLS for the RN. Even at its maximum reserve prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq the MOD only had around 100 Tomahawks and went through them pretty damn fast. Even during the 2011 intervention in Libya the RN only fired 2 out of the 100 or so Tomahawks launched by NATO. While Britain could afford such a ship, the costs of equiping it with 250 missiles would be so vast (including suitable reserves) and would ultimately only lead to a small number of otherwise inflexible hulls.

Russell


Well, since British MoD in his infinite wisdom decided not to put Tomahawk capable VLS cells on Type 45 and it is doubtful will they be on Type 26 and numbers of UK SSNs are so small that they can't launch meaningful number of Tomahawk on enemy, the need for something that will launch cruise missiles is obvious.
Now, will that be smaller or greater ship, with 50 or 150 or 250 cells, that's another thing.
I would actually prefer something like Korean KDX-III destroyer or KDX-II frigate, that could launch all kind of missiles but...
 
Well, since British MoD in his infinite wisdom decided not to put Tomahawk capable VLS cells on Type 45 and it is doubtful will they be on Type 26 and numbers of UK SSNs are so small that they can't launch meaningful number of Tomahawk on enemy, the need for something that will launch cruise missiles is obvious.
Now, will that be smaller or greater ship, with 50 or 150 or 250 cells, that's another thing.
I would actually prefer something like Korean KDX-III destroyer or KDX-II frigate, that could launch all kind of missiles but...

Well actually, the type 26 will probably have strike-capable VLS since its part of the design remit. It's also using a seperate, smaller VLS system for the CAAMS self defence missile system.

Personally, I would go back 10 years, order 8 Type 45s and ensure that they had at least 48 MK41 VLS tubes.

Russell
 
Interesting ideas...

...Sounds like an Aegis of a different colour...

...Now for it...

Back in the 1980s when I was a RUSI member, one contributor to their magazine seemed to have been influenced by the James Bond autogyro (Wallis's 'Little Nellie'). The idea was to have troops of these for close-support (AT and AP) as new style 'Dragoons'. After I picked myself off the floor after a good belly-laugh, imagining the Dragoons parading at Horse Guards, I said 'What if...?'. One problem would be, not RAF, not AAC, more the kind of thing you'd tell to the Marines. So, back to a UK RN equivalent of the USMC. And with the RNAS in mind (and the deterrent, let us not forget) I thought we'd ditch most of the top-heavy Army and RAF and stick to the Navy. Autogyros any use for Mounted Infantry (back to the Boer War), folks?
 

abc123

Banned
Well actually, the type 26 will probably have strike-capable VLS since its part of the design remit. It's also using a seperate, smaller VLS system for the CAAMS self defence missile system.

Personally, I would go back 10 years, order 8 Type 45s and ensure that they had at least 48 MK41 VLS tubes.

Russell


I agree about bolded part.

About Type 26, we will see, but nothing can't surprise me...
;)
 
Not sure you understand me...

...Kipling had a poem about 'M.I.' who were Mounted Infantry on Argentine horses. Thousands were shipped in as cheapo mobility. I was just suggesting the autogyros as a modern equivalent to bring power to the point...
 
Which is why I sugest keeping the older frigates in service as patrol ships for duties like suppressing Piracy, Drug running and People smuggling. This leaves the new ships free to escort the carriers and amphibious force.
The problem with that concept is that those vessel are personal intensive (I mean alot), there are old hulls, and the vessels are relative overkill for glorified policing duties that you are mentioning. The best although it does cost more money is simple to build the C3 Type 26 Frigates or some variation there of; the main cost in any vessel is always weapon and electronic systems thus if the C3 type is actual produced the cost would be relative minimal due to light armaments and minimal electronic warfare assets. In addition the C3 type will most likely be far more modular (plug-in and swap systems) and utilize more crew automation; along with more economical possible commercial grade engines systems.
Even the C3 variants of the Type 26 might be a little bit on the large size. For duties like the Atlantic Patrol Task (North), formerly the West Indies Guard Ship, and various patrols and things things like anti-narcotics operations thye've generally been forced to use Type 22 or Type 23 frigates simply because that's all they have. Something like the Israeli Sa'ar 5-class corvette has always struck me as something that would be rather handy for second tier operations like that and generally showing the flag. Lower manpower, reduced size, smaller draught so it can go places that larger vessels like the current frigates can't - handy in places like the Gulf, might of helped avoid the HMS Cornwall debacle from a few years back. Of course it only really works it if you're going to buy enough of them to make it economical.
 

abc123

Banned
Even the C3 variants of the Type 26 might be a little bit on the large size. For duties like the Atlantic Patrol Task (North), formerly the West Indies Guard Ship, and various patrols and things things like anti-narcotics operations thye've generally been forced to use Type 22 or Type 23 frigates simply because that's all they have. Something like the Israeli Sa'ar 5-class corvette has always struck me as something that would be rather handy for second tier operations like that and generally showing the flag. Lower manpower, reduced size, smaller draught so it can go places that larger vessels like the current frigates can't - handy in places like the Gulf, might of helped avoid the HMS Cornwall debacle from a few years back. Of course it only really works it if you're going to buy enough of them to make it economical.

I'm against of that.
Much better IMO is to buy large OPV like Spanish BAM.
It has long range and it shouldn't cost more than 150 millions USD in UK ( about 120 millions in Spain ).
It is relativly cheap and simple, and good enough for patrol duties in Western Indies, West Africa, Horn of Africa, Indian ocean or Falkland Islands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buque_de_Acción_Marítima

800px-Rayo_P42.jpg
 
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