What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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AngloSaxonVangaurd
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What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

Post by AngloSaxonVangaurd »

Various online news articles in the UK suggest maybe the Royal Marines will come under the British Army. The Royal Navy will loose the bulk of its amphibious forces and its surface fleet will shrink. Personnel will also be cut.

But the Carriers look to be in a pretty safe position thanks to their massive job creation and boost to the defence industry and UK economy. Also to cut the carriers would result in at least £1 billion+ in penalties, so its cheaper to build them than cut them.
Astute number 7 could be cut, but BAE really needs the order and again creates much-needed jobs and boost to the defence industry and economy.
Daring class cannot be cut either, as the program is almost over now.

I would like to see;
The Decommissioning of the last 5 of the type 42 destroyers from service, effective immediately (as all Type 45 replacements will be commissioned by 2013 any way)

Decommission HMS Invincible (now in reserve) and HMS Illustrious. Effective immediately.

Reduce the Mine hunting fleet from 16 now to 14. Effective immediately.

Reduce manpower from 39,200 regular personnel to 35,500 personnel. (A cut in manpower by 3,700, including all surplus high paid officers.Going by basic RN wages that would result in savings of £500 million over 5 years. Consider officers wages and that’s closer to £700 million saved over 5 years.)

Reduce reserve manpower from 3,600 to 2,500.

The above would save easily £2.5-3 billion over the 2010 - 2015 period, which is the sort of cuts the Navy has to make any way. This would save the amphibious capability, and the 2 Type 45s will have their PAAMs operational by the end of this year, so I wouldn’t miss the T 42s at all.
Royal Marines should remain under the Royal Navy, it wouldn’t save money by putting the Royal Marines in the army any way. I guess that was just typical media bull shit any way.

The JSF, F-35 could be reduced to 90 air craft and still leave enough aircraft in frontline squadrons to fill CVF. (All aircraft will be owned by RAF, just like the Harrier)

Example;
(2x Royal Navy squadrons (Aircraft owned by RAF)
2x RAF squadrons
1x RAF/Royal Navy training squadron)

800 Naval Air Sqn (12 x F-35B)
801 Naval Air Sqn (12 x F-35B)

1 Squadron RAF (12 x F-35B)
4 Squadron RAF (12 x F-35B)

20 (Reserve) Training Squadron (16 x F-35B)

Spare (26 x F-35B to cycle through active fleet, replace lost aircraft etc)

This, just like JFH (Joint Force Harrier) will mean the Royal Navy can support its carriers in small - medium level operations, with its 2 Royal navy squadrons of 24 F-35s. However for the Royal Navy to undertake a medium to large scale operation it would need the help of the RAFs squadrons to give the Royal Navy’s carriers the full 36 F-35Bs.

In peace time, the Carriers would only hold one squadron of 12 F-35Bs anyway, so 90 F-35Bs, providing 2 Royal Navy and 2 RAF squadrons of F-35Bs would always allow the Royal Navy to have sufficient aircraft ready to undertake a medium to large scale operation. Such as another Falklands war, or a joint invasion of Iran with the USA.

In a surge, the Royal Navy could deploy 1 Carrier with 36 F-35Bs (3 x Squadrons) and have the second Carrier on stand by with 12 F-35Bs (1 x Squadrons).
Compare this with the French Navy who will have a max of 58 Rafale M, with only 2 frontline squadrons of 12 x Rafale and 1 reserve training squadron of 10-14 Rafale, the rest are spares.

Canada recently placed orders for 65 F-35s at a cost of £5.5 Billion, so 90 F-35Bs could cost the UK £8 - 9.5 Billion. Not bad really, and the core money spent would be in the years 2016 – 2020 long after the Tories 4 year budget reduction program from 2010 – 2014/15.

I hope for the best, in reality the Royal Navy is the core of British military capability, no matter how good the Army is prepared for the afghan war, if the Royal Navy cannot support it and deploy it in large numbers then we cant fight the afghan war anyway. The British Army is a projectile fired by the Royal Navy, and the Future of offensive Royal Air force airpower is also a projectile fired by the Royal Navy. The SDSR should reflect this.
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RF
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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AngloSaxonVangaurd wrote:Various online news articles in the UK suggest maybe the Royal Marines will come under the British Army.
I was rather bemused by this suggestion. As one critic wrote in my local newspaper, it is well known that members of the Royal Marines and the Parachute Regiment do tend to have a special form of greeting when they encounter each other. It is called a fight.

Given that generations of military police and naval provost have been trying to keep these units apart, I wish the politicians luck in trying out that idea.....
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RF
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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AngloSaxonVangaurd wrote:
I hope for the best, in reality the Royal Navy is the core of British military capability, no matter how good the Army is prepared for the afghan war, if the Royal Navy cannot support it and deploy it in large numbers then we cant fight the afghan war anyway. The British Army is a projectile fired by the Royal Navy, and the Future of offensive Royal Air force airpower is also a projectile fired by the Royal Navy. The SDSR should reflect this.
What Britain needs is a navy that can span the globe. Britain is not a superpower and should not pretend to be, but global influence, as a primary ally of the US, requires a global reach.

The current Tory Liberal coalition is only interested in cutting expenditure and playing a ''positive' role in Europe.'' Not much hope for a global influence is there?
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

Post by AngloSaxonVangaurd »

http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/Je ... randum.pdf

PM David Cameron actualy appears to be level headed when it comes to defence, I wonder how him being MP will effect the SDSR.
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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Level headed yes. But the letter is rather disengenous.

On his own admission Cameron (and even more so Clegg) wants Britain to ''play a positive role in Europe.'' Britains' most important foreign relationship is not with the United States but with the European Union. This point is ignored in both Cameron's letter and in Bernard Jenkins missive, even though Bernard Jenkins used to be ''Eurosceptic.''

The impact of the Lisbon Treaty on UK defence policy is completely airbrushed out of the discussion. Until that is addressed the Cameron letter is practically meaningless. It is clear from the policies advocated by the EU Commission President Manual Barosso and politicians such as Rampoy that Britain will cease to have an independent foreign policy and that the UK armed forces will be included within EU military forces under EU command. This means that the expenditure on the new carriers and other British military hardware funded by the British taxpayer will be for the benefit of the EU and placed under its command. The likes of Baroness Ashton, the EU ''Foreign Minister'' will have more say on UK military deployments than the likes of David Cameron and Liam Fox.

The SDSR is basically a load of spin, just what I would expect from a coaliton of Blue Labour mixed with a bit of Orange/Amber Labour. Just like ''vote for change'' and get a new set of smoke and mirrors.
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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AngloSaxonVangaurd wrote: PM David Cameron actualy appears to be level headed when it comes to defence, I wonder how him being MP will effect the SDSR.
The latest reported excercise in this plan for disarmament under the guise of spending cuts, after the episode of ''the RN sharing carriers with the French'' - ho hum, I can't wait for the French to agree to that! - is that Britain no longer has an independent RAF, but to parcel it out to the Army and RN.

What amazes me is that millions of people still vote for the Conservative Party. Presumably it is because they are seen as the only certain alternative to Labour, no matter how useless they are....
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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I think this article is worth quoting in full as, to me at least, it has a certain ring of truth to it...


David Cameron ‘rules out slash and burn defence cuts’
Robert Fox and Martin Bentham
08.10.10

David Cameron has intervened to prevent “slash and burn” cuts to the Armed Forces after holding a private meeting with defence chiefs.


"The Prime Minister is understood to have decided that there will be no reduction in the operational strength of the Army while the fighting in Afghanistan continues.

He has also agreed that both of the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers will be built and that, instead of implementing widespread and large-scale cuts immediately, a “rolling review” of defence spending will take place over the next two years. Key decisions on the future strength of the Army will also be put off until 2015 — which Mr Cameron has set as the deadline for a British withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Prime Minister's intervention over cuts to the Ministry of Defence's £37 billion-a-year budget came during a private summit with defence chiefs held after a meeting of the National Security Council yesterday. He is understood to have emphasised his determination to minimise the impact of cuts on the Armed Forces.

“It is not going to be slash and burn,” one source said. Details of the Government's plans will be announced in a strategic defence and security review — due to be published the week after next, the day before the outcome of the public spending review is revealed.

The decision to go ahead with both new aircraft carriers is understood to have been taken partly because contractual commitments mean that it would be equally expensive to cancel one.

Plans to use vertical take-off aircraft on the carriers have been abandoned, however, and cheaper jets that take off and land by using a catapult and wire will be used instead. The second carrier might also be converted from its conventional use to operate as a “floating platform” for commandos.

The Navy is also expected to be allowed to buy new frigates for 2020, and the Royal Marines will be retained instead of being merged with the Army's Paratroop Regiment, as some reports had suggested. However, the helicopter budget is expected to be reduced by as much as £1 billion. Ministers are expected to insist that this will not affect operations in Afghanistan.

All the planned changes are subject to confirmation at a final meeting of the National Security Council prior to publication of the defence review.


PM has realised the world is a more dangerous place

At last, the Prime Minister has taken charge of the radical overhaul of defence and foreign policy, though not in the direction previously advertised.

Chairing a session of the new National Security Council yesterday he and senior ministers put the final lick of paint to the Strategic Defence and Security Review due to be unveiled on October 19 — a day before the voice of doom of the Treasury, George Osborne, announces the Comprehensive Spending Review.

The timing is the clue. “The review document will be very thin, a statement of intent more than definitive plan for cuts,” a Westminster insider said last night.

The plan now is to have a rolling review looking at all aspects of defence management, the armed forces, and equipment procurement, over the next two years or so. There will have to be some cuts, though nothing on the scale previously suggested. One of the target areas is the helicopter budget. The number of machines will be reduced. The Trident replacement will be delayed by a year or two, but will go ahead in one form or another — as will the aircraft carrier programme, though with a different variant of the Lockheed Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

These are mere details compared with the overall change of strategy the Prime Minister appeared to agree at the meeting yesterday. What has changed? First the Americans became alarmed that after appearing in Douglas Hurd's words “to punch above its weight,” Britain under the Hurd protégé David Cameron was preparing to punch well below its weight.

Second, defence industry warned Cameron that the Treasury's scorched earth plan for cuts would wreck defence manufacture, which employs directly more than 300,000 skilled personnel.

Finally, the world is a far more dangerous place than even when Mr Cameron went through the door at No 10 in May. Hot spots are breeding, and at least six of them hint of wars and violence that touch vital British interests.

It is no time for British defences and defence capabilities to be lowered — whatever the Treasury audit clerks may say. Mr Cameron appears to have got the message.

Robert Fox
Defence Correspondent"

http://www.thisislondon.c...and-burn-defence-cuts.do


http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/index.html
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RF
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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IronDuke wrote:
At last, the Prime Minister has taken charge of the radical overhaul of defence and foreign policy, though not in the direction previously advertised.

— whatever the Treasury audit clerks may say. Mr Cameron appears to have got the message.
I don't think so. Reread the article - the cutbacks are still there. This is an excercise that would be typical of Alistair Campbell, Peter Mandelson and Gordon Brown, all spin, smoke and mirrors. Only it is our Blue Labour government that is doing it.
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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IronDuke wrote:
PM has realised the world is a more dangerous place

These are mere details compared with the overall change of strategy the Prime Minister appeared to agree at the meeting yesterday. What has changed? First the Americans became alarmed that after appearing in Douglas Hurd's words “to punch above its weight,” Britain under the Hurd protégé David Cameron was preparing to punch well below its weight.

Second, defence industry warned Cameron that the Treasury's scorched earth plan for cuts would wreck defence manufacture, which employs directly more than 300,000 skilled personnel.

Finally, the world is a far more dangerous place than even when Mr Cameron went through the door at No 10 in May. Hot spots are breeding, and at least six of them hint of wars and violence that touch vital British interests.

It is no time for British defences and defence capabilities to be lowered —

A proper government, that looks after the interests of Britain, would be increasing military expenditure, not reducing it. In particular the reach and firepower of all our armed forces needs to be substantially increased. What we have is reduction by stealth.

What it demonstrates to me is that we have an anti-Conservative government in power. Remember ''vote for change?'' - well wheres's the change Dave?
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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I do not disagree with you, but one has to deal with the political types one has.
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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The essence of ''the political types one has'' is that UK defence policy will be tied in with the rest of the EU, under the existing Lisbon Treaty commitments that the previous Labour Government signed up to. Britain's armed forces are too big for the EU, so ''cutting the deficit'' is a useful distraction to justify downsisizing them.
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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Here's the latest on the fears of what these budget cuts will do to the RAF:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11529330
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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Early scrapping for the Ark Royal:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11570593
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

Post by 19kilo »

Well, thats sad but it does leave the possibility of passing the name on to PoW.
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Re: What will the SDSR (SDR) mean for the Royal Navy?

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Maybe the name can be passed on. I'm more concerned that the new carrier won't have much in the way of its own aircraft.
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