UK Defence Forum

With the Tide class due (at some point). The Loss of Diligence. The large Solids support ships. The Future of Argus. And the way the RFA is being used/misused. I would suggest like the Navy threads leaving the different RFA classes threads for News and posting here views on the direction/future of the "Fourth Force".

We all have heard of the difficulty in attracting new members to both the RN/RFA. By having a seperate branch to support the RN, do you find it easier to attract recruits, or do you think it should be one all encompassing Navy under the one banner?

What is the diffrence in conditions of service between the RFA/RN, do they provide shore accomadation? What are the differences in ship habitat are they the same or to a higher standards? And what of the pay are they equivalent?

Just curious looking from an Australian perspective with a majority of shipping coming under the RAN

putting it simply the RFA are Merchant Navy employed by the MoD and their terms and conditions reflect this same with accomodation etc

The retention and recruitment of merchant marine personal by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary has been the under reported elephant in the room . The pool of U.K. merchant marine personal has shrank to the extent that The navy might have to consider supporting training to fill post. This would need funding and in a much reduced budget thanks to Mr Osborne's cuckoo of putting the nuclear deterrent in the core budget(Without the funding) unlikely. So I expect that Diligence wont be the last early out of service Auxiliary. Even though they are very good value for the capability that they can do in secondary duties.

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arfah wrote:Wave Class next, once the Tides come in.

Doubt it. They're only a decade old!

most probably argus and one of the forts

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And Portugal are in the market for a second hand tanker to replace their Rover class tanker.

Sell both the waves and buy another tide? That would make a lovely common fleet.

[quote="shark bait"]Sell both the waves and buy another tide? That would make a lovely common fleet.[/quote Since when did the treasury short term political masters and mandarins think logically to save money long term ?

It should not be for the Treasury to decide what the defence budget is spent on once it has been set, otherwise what's the point of the MOD? If they think they know best on maters of defence why not make it a small department within the treasury.

Wave Class next, once the Tides come in.

hopefully not, saw one in the Plymouth sound today. Could we get by on just the Tides?

Perhaps the low number of RN surface ships is actually an argument for retaining more RFA ships since they are needed to fill the gaps, as they are currently doing now?

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arfah wrote:My point is can the RN (As part of the MOD) justify 'six tankers' when the amount of RN combatants is getting smaller.

The government's declared policy is that the number of RN surface combatants will remain at 19 and possibly increase. Won't comment on whether this will be delivered, but that's their current stated intention. Those RFA tankers also make up a good chunk of European replenishment capacity, so even if the RN alone doesn't need six (which I'd still say it does) our allies benefit significantly from us having six. In the same way that having 8 C-17s allowed us to support French operations in Mali.

Therefore, in order to maintain prime capability something has to go. When the MOD pays off or writes off anything, it has to be justifiable to the public purse and therefore the treasury.

Hence my prior comment regarding the Wave class. A "Tidey" sum could be earned for other concerns.

Edit: Ultimately, I'm just speculating. It isn't like the treasury hasn't got form though, is it?

Paying off RFAs that have repeatedly proven very useful as cheap "plastic frigates", along with providing an extremely valuable capacity within Europe, would be the height of short sighted decisions. Hey this is HMT we're talking about though.

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arfah wrote:Just recently the RN has commenced using River class in the Caribbean instead of Wave class.

Thinking like a Treasury boss: "If we can spare a Wave class for constabulary duties in the Caribbean, then we don't really need it."

"If we've replaced the Wave with a River we can sell it once the Tide class are in service."

Except we haven't replaced the RFA in the Caribbean with a River, the River now does the counter-narcotics duty that was once done by a proper escort and the RFA operates in the West Indies during the hurricane season because it can remain at sea in much harsher conditions and carry a helo and enough stores to make a difference.

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arfah wrote:As I commented: "Thinking like a Treasury boss"

The making of a Treasury Boss:

I usually find a .38 more effective for that procedure.

arfah wrote:Just recently the RN has commenced using River class in the Caribbean instead of Wave class.

Thinking like a Treasury boss: "If we can spare a Wave class for constabulary duties in the Caribbean, then we don't really need it."

"If we've replaced the Wave with a River we can sell it once the Tide class are in service."

Or we can sell the tides as bare boats to Portugal and I think the Australians are in the Market for a Tanker or two!

marktigger wrote:
the Australians are in the Market for a Tanker or two!

We have to on order with Navantia to be built in Spain.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defens ... /81656478/

Was hoping to get a third but it's not the case.

So you have 2 tankers to support 12 escorts and 2 platforms
We have 6 tankers to support 19 escorts and 3 platforms

Who has the correct ratio?

Hey, they are not as crazy as us, travelling round half of the world to fight.
- different ratio, for a reason

They're already on the other side of the world

shark bait wrote:So you have 2 tankers to support 12 escorts and 2 platforms
We have 6 tankers to support 19 escorts and 3 platforms

Who has the correct ratio?

Well you have, we really need four 2x east 2 x west, but we have use of a third from across the ditch, which comes in handy. Also we will work in with the US Seventh Fleet and there supporting assets.

From memory I think it was the BAE consortium two to build in SK and a third here, but that ment an upgrade to the infrastructure in SA which is always a good thing