UK Defence Forum

donald_of_tokyo wrote:Yes, treasury do cut. See RM 43 Cdo. See RFA and RN's man power shortage. See HMS Lancaster. Yes. But, in purchase point of view, MOD is spending a lot and treasury in many cases keep there promise

Donald, I agree with your broader argument. But is the RM repurposing a cut; have we seen the details? Manpower shortage - is it about payscales (and , less so, about defence "blogs" that consistently rubbish the Forces, their kit and the political support/ direction behind them)?
- what about HMS Lancaster? What is the "wrong doing" with it?

Jake1992 wrote:the RN needs to aim high in order to get what it needs as a minimum in the end

Jake, your post explained fairly well what they have been doing, just Peter and Paul happen to be squatting at different branches of the Forces, and at some point the Treasury will have to step in, to stop that happening on too large a scale
- I must say that the RAF has been in the game with their fast jets, too, and it is the army that did not cotton onto it quick enough, whose strategic direction was blurred by Iraq/ Afghanistan (where they had to be the main player) and even their late (strategic direction, or packaging of penny packets) effort in the form of FRES was pulled apart, more by events (my dear boy, events... who said that) than the fact that the other services were better able to stay the course with their strategic initiatives.

The problem is that the treasury pitches the 3 services against each other to save money the the 3 are to blinde to see it
If they came together and said no we need more funding that's it then HMG would either have to cave to them or publicley show they are not will to fund the armed forces

Jake1992 wrote:The problem is that the treasury pitches the 3 services against each other to save money the the 3 are to blinde to see it
If they came together and said no we need more funding that's it then HMG would either have to cave to them or publicley show they are not will to fund the armed forces

I agree what you said, but the conclusion is "it is NOT treasury", as I understand. It is HMG. Government defines the income (TAX), and expense (total budget and its allocation). Treasury is just actually doing it. Thus, blaming treasury is completely pointless, this is what I meant.

UK Government is allocating NOT enough resource to its armed forces to provide the capabilities to realize what they say.

If you place "2 large LHDs", then you may end-up with only 2 LHD and no Bay-replacements or forced to cut 2nd CVF, NOT because treasury cuts the budget, but because the cost of 2 LHD (will) increases significantly. Here I say, if a 2B GBP project increases by 30%, it will kill ALL the Bay replacements.

My proposal is, to say "Let's built 2 LPH and 4 Bay/Bulwark-replacments", but start with 1 LPH and 3 LPDs and set a milestone 10 years from now. Since Treasury rarely cuts the allocated budget, if the program cost is within the scope 10 years later, yes you can execute the remaining 30% assets = get 2nd LPH and 4th LPD. Even if the cost increases, you can get 1 LPH and 3 LPDs.

Jake1992 wrote:The problem is that the treasury pitches the 3 services against each other to save money the the 3 are to blinde to see it
If they came together and said no we need more funding that's it then HMG would either have to cave to them or publicley show they are not will to fund the armed forces

the treasury pitches every level of government against each other and penalises the most efficient. Throughout the 80's 90's 00 the MoD was the only govt department to deliver the year on year efficiency and those savings soon add up leading to the current crisis

donald_of_tokyo wrote:

Jake1992 wrote:
Yes, treasury do cut. See RM 43 Cdo. See RFA and RN's man power shortage. See HMS Lancaster. Yes. But, in purchase point of view, MOD is spending a lot and treasury in many cases keep there promise. It is MOD/RN/industry who failed to control the cost. What I am saying is, RN/MOD shall stop pretending they can build "highly capable assets" as cheap as the other navy's "so-so" assets. In general, UK ship building industry's "not-high" skill, combined with very high-level of RN naval standard requirement, makes them "very expensive". See Ocean, see Bay. Low-level assets is properly built even in UK. So, making it simple, requiring less, will be important, I guess.

X

Considering how well is British defence system managed by DoD mandarins and generals/admirals, I would allmost ask the Treasury to take over the DoD too, they hardly can be any worse...

donald_of_tokyo wrote:My proposal is, to say "Let's built 2 LPH and 4 Bay/Bulwark-replacments", but start with 1 LPH and 3 LPDs

Putting aside more money for defence, given that we now have two "traditional" over the beach RM Cdos it's best to go for two smaller ARGs that when combined could be the nucleus of a large task force. As I say, a LPH would be nice, but two would be impossible given the manpower required- one CVF would be ditched which would be a very bad move. Say for me, each mini ARG having an RFA LPD, LSD and ASS/SSS (able to operate a minimum of 6 Merlins / Apaches) would be a solid proposition.

Given that current plans to deploy just 1 Cdo requires:

1 × LPH (Ocean)
1 × LPD (Albion or Bulwark)
2 × LSD (Bay class)
1 × RoRo (Point class)

your mini ARG looks very small if you hope to deploy 1 Cdo battlegroup.

Could one of you please explain the composition and size of a typical commando battlegroup we might be trying to deploy under such a scenario? Many thanks

The current planning assumptions are centered around the the ability to deploy and support 1 Cdo Battlegroup. This requires the ability to transport at total Embarked Military Force of 1800 people. and about 5000 LiM of vehicles and equipment.

The 1800 is made up of an infantry fighting force of 750 (i.e. a Cdo), an air group of 300ish, about 100 for landing craft crews and the rest are critical enablers such as artillery, engineers, logistics, signals, command, medics, etc.

To many armchair generals, 1800 people (of which only 750 are your fighting force) sounds a lot but if fact this is very light. Critical enablers are called that for a reason.

What can a force of 750 achieve? Classical military planning would say that you need a force ratio of af least 3 to 1 in your favour when taking on peer opponents. So the 1800 strong Cdo group can be confident of defeating an opposing fighting force of 250.

Aethulwulf wrote:The current planning assumptions are centered around the the ability to deploy and support 1 Cdo Battlegroup. This requires the ability to transport at total Embarked Military Force of 1800 people. and about 5000 LiM of vehicles and equipment.

The 1800 is made up of an infantry fighting force of 750 (i.e. a Cdo), an air group of 300ish, about 100 for landing craft crews and the rest are critical enablers such as artillery, engineers, logistics, signals, command, medics, etc.

To many armchair generals, 1800 people (of which only 750 are your fighting force) sounds a lot but if fact this is very light. Critical enablers are called that for a reason.

What can a force of 750 achieve? Classical military planning would say that you need a force ratio of af least 3 to 1 in your favour when taking on peer opponents. So the 1800 strong Cdo group can be confident of defeating an opposing fighting force of 250.

Thanks for the detailed response. Sounds like we've set an awfully low bar....

Yes, I agree the bar is low.

But remember you don't have to achieve a 3 to 1 ratio over the whole opposing force, just over the op force local to the area where you have chosen to deploy.

Got ya, sounds slightly better...

Just posted on the Amphibious thread - interesting to read about the RN Continuous Amphibious Readiness (CAR) which talks about the ability to maintain a 2 Coy RM capability on short notice. Based on the 1:3 rule this would mean about 800.

See my reply on the Amphibious thread. You have misunderstood the reference to 2 Coy within the CAR capability.

dmereifield wrote:

Aethulwulf wrote:The current planning assumptions are centered around the the ability to deploy and support 1 Cdo Battlegroup. This requires the ability to transport at total Embarked Military Force of 1800 people. and about 5000 LiM of vehicles and equipment.

The 1800 is made up of an infantry fighting force of 750 (i.e. a Cdo), an air group of 300ish, about 100 for landing craft crews and the rest are critical enablers such as artillery, engineers, logistics, signals, command, medics, etc.

To many armchair generals, 1800 people (of which only 750 are your fighting force) sounds a lot but if fact this is very light. Critical enablers are called that for a reason.

What can a force of 750 achieve? Classical military planning would say that you need a force ratio of af least 3 to 1 in your favour when taking on peer opponents. So the 1800 strong Cdo group can be confident of defeating an opposing fighting force of 250.

Thanks for the detailed response. Sounds like we've set an awfully low bar....

Some have attacked me recently when I said that Sierra Leone-type operation is about a maximum that UK is capable now...

Reminder: Part 2 of "Warship" (about HMS Ocean) is on Channel 4 at 8pm, Monday 17th April.

Sierra Leone IS the most we can do on our own and even that is scraping the barrel a bit. The UKs amphibious capacity and capability is now small scale raiding. Its main role is going to be moving the RM and Army to and from operational theatres where purely civilian vessels are at too much risk. That was basically what was done in the Falklands war, where the lack of heavy units and their needs meant we could still go over the beach with light units.

We are never going to have the capability to conduct true opposed landings, and investing heavily in specialised vessels is going to hit umbers of other more important platforms. Yes this does put the numbers of the RM under threat but the times are what they are. Concentrating on treading water regarding capacity should be the MoD's primary goal. Replacing Ocean would be nice but is in Fantasy Fleet territory.

LordJim wrote:The UKs amphibious capacity and capability is now small scale raiding.

LordJim wrote:We are never going to have the capability to conduct true opposed landings, and investing heavily in specialised vessels is going to hit umbers of other more important platforms. Yes this does put the numbers of the RM under threat but the times are what they are. Concentrating on treading water regarding capacity should be the MoD's primary goal. Replacing Ocean would be nice but is in Fantasy Fleet territory.

If the RM (and I'd suggest Paras) just a raiding Commando force, then why not keep Ocean and scrap the Albions? It is a great raiding platform and I'd say in the future 3 flat-tops should be the focus given the target warfare and the need for redundancy, so a LPH replacement would be high on my list. I'd complement this with new LCVPs capable to be deployed from Ocean and also minor warships (future MHPC). A CVF/Ocean plus 2 LSDs would be sufficient to act as an aviation assault group of 1,800 troops.

LordJim wrote:Its main role is going to be moving the RM and Army to and from operational theatres where purely civilian vessels are at too much risk.

I'd say that'she the role of the Points with troops flown in - if it's too dangerous for that forget it.

maybe because keeping ocean at the standard for a top level navy is getting more expensive?

Maybe what we need then is a militarised version of the points, with CIWS etc. to replace the Albions and Bays.

By the way did anyone see any escorts with Ocean last night? given the areas she was transiting, relying on a few crew members manning GPMGs seems to highlight much of what is wrong with the state of our Armed Forces. If was also interesting that the Merlin shown off etc. was an HM2. It seems Ocean is being used to trial a composite airgroup of the type proposed for the QE and PoW minus the F-35s of course.

Perhaps you did not notice the 4x30mm, 3xCIWS, Miniguns plus the GPMGs.

Didnt she spend a lot of time as the center of the USN 5th fleet? a test fit for future QE ops?

Just trying to make a point about lack of escorts by only mentioning the GPMGs. Mind you operating with the 5th Fleet and they providing the escorts may be the way ahead. For NATO ops we provide the Flat Top and an escort and NATO provides the rest. Result we only need the 6 T-45s and 8 T-26s and we can use any funds allocated to the T-31 somewhere else and everyone is happy. (Medication must be kicking in!)

It shows the sad state of our navy that we cannot provide an escort for our flagship transiting to the gulf. IMO GPMG and Phalanx are not enough sailing on her own, hostile waters or not.

marktigger wrote:interesting both these sources state can operate F35 Joint Strike fighter and one of the sources is the builder!

Not without great extra cost.
From The Australian Strategic Policy Institute Limited 2014