ArmChairCivvy wrote:
- I don't think the Gulf Arabs have forgotten that we left already once. Iran snatched their 3 islands when there was still 3 days of our defence treaty with the Trucial States left to run.
While that is true, and pretty much the whole world clings on to the view of "Perfidious Albion", one would hope they would not forget Operation Vantage, the re-opening of the Suez Canal, the Gulf Wars and all the diplomatic resources we have expended in the region.
ArmChairCivvy wrote:- We did not leave Oman, though. Where, coincidentally, the turn-around point & facilities for the mentioned carrier TF will be
A sign, perhaps, that strategic thinking is not dead.
ArmChairCivvy wrote:- if such a presence peaks from zero, and then goes down to zero again, how good do you think the security will be (Cole and all that...)
I did not mean to imply that it would be the carrier and her escorts for a couple of the months of the year and nothing else, presumably we could be able to maintain one of our first-rate escorts on station (on rotation).
ArmChairCivvy wrote:- so Oman takes us to both of the pinch points. Not just the Strait of Hormuz, but also Bab el Mandeb. Geopolitically (and in navy terms) the Gulf region is not restricted to the Gulf itself, but extends as far as the Gulf of Aden and the second pinch point as per above. So we get to have that covered, symbolic presence, yes, but we are not alone there
- the Gulf states have resources aplenty. Also ships - but not so for the crews. Saudi Arabia had to make a conscious decision to build up one navy first (they wanted another one in the Red Sea) regardless of how much money was available in budget terms
I meant to edit in an addendum to my previous post that a Type 31 could be useful in the Gulf of Aden, in support of the Combined Task Forces for example. Spain has been sending their B.A.M. OPVs on such deployments. Even then, there are (possibly better) ways of meeting this requirement without using OPVs or "light frigates". I just can't see a Type 31 (in its currently speculated configuration) being anything more than a sitting duck up-threat in the Persian Gulf. Even the Bab-el-Mandeb has become much more dangerous recently as we've seen with US DDGs.
ArmChairCivvy wrote:- now we have made it as far as Standing Tasks
It should be noted that the only one of our (previously numerous) standing (escort) tasks not in home waters that is still being met is a reduced Operation Kipion. We have, however, increased our (intermittent) NATO standing maritime group deployments. That is 2 foreign station deployments with a fleet of 19 (on paper) escorts, surely can't be helping with morale and retention. "Join the Navy, see the world" indeed.
ArmChairCivvy wrote:- in fact I have promoted (from Day1 which for me was 2010 , when I started thinking that contributing on forums like this might have value the view that Standing Tasks are just a "laundry list" and prioritisation of threats (including the mobilisation effect on weaker allies, if we happen to have any in the region in focus) should be done dynamically and our assets allocated accordingly. Knowing full well that all those constraints listed weigh in. Even more reason to be a bit more "dynamic"
Yes, very important point to remember. The RN has (arguably) never had enough ships or manpower to meet all of the commitments set by HM Government, and has always had to scale its deployments according to regional threats and available resources. Deployments should be flexible.
To use the Gulf as an example:
-We used to maintain a squadron of patrol frigates there.
-We even built a class of sloops (later re-classified as frigates), the Type 81, with primarily that requirement in mind, only to have that requirement removed by the government a decade or so later. The patrol frigates proved less than successful in home waters and were sacrificed in the subsequent rounds of manpower and budget cuts.
-After another decade or so, we were back in the Gulf when our interests in the region were threatened.
-Since then, we have maintained ships in the region scaled to the threat of the day. When the Falklands were invaded, we re-directed our efforts to the South Atlantic; when Kuwait was invaded we sent a good deal of our 'battle fleet' to the Gulf; after 9/11, we greatly expanded deployments to the region, at the sacrifice of many of our other global commitments due to the fleet having been too small for the last decade or so.
Now, we seem to have scaled back again for various reasons. Has the threat there decreased? Has the threat in home waters increased? Are we concentrating more on other regions? Can the fleet not cope with the resources it currently has?
ArmChairCivvy wrote:- what is the threat level around the Falklands, let's just say the SLOCs East of Suez... where we were never meant to be again, except under the 5-party arrangements - is set to an index of 100 (need not be the max, may be an invasion already rolling counts as 1000)
With my suggestion, (and it is only a suggestion or musing, for the sake of discussion, I am not stating we
should station a Type 31 in the Falklands) we would simply be replacing an OPV with (from what is speculated), a "frigate" with ~24 missiles for self-defence and a hull-mounted sonar, and possibly (hopefully) a helicopter with anti-ship missiles or torpedoes.
Taking the Type 23 "GP" as a baseline (as the warships that have tended to patrol the region in the recent past), that would offer a similar level of (basic) capability, with a (possibly greatly) reduced crew and maintenance requirements. If these new "frigates" are not built with cruiser-like range and endurance in favour of affordability (the Type 23 was also not designed with this in mind), they could be forward-deployed there to reduce time in transit.
The UK has a duty to defend the Falklands (which is largely met by the other services stationed on the islands), including the EEZ with a potential future oil industry that would need protection (not just around the islands themselves). The UK has other interests in the wider region. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but opportunistic governments love nothing more than to exploit one.
