Nah, I don't think so. It's a think tank, not a government policy. Their conclusions are massively flawed as it is, let alone that the carriers are too far ahead to cancel (as well as being industrial suicide for the ship yards and the company providing the steel if they cancel them). Other cold war 'relics' like eurofighter are protected by fiscal penalties.... there is no way out of buying them.

It seems there have been a number of articles in the Times and Telegraph this past week positing an either or choice between the carriers and a Trident replacement. If it comes down to that choice, as I believe it will because too many of the Pols want the denfense money for programs to secure their re-elections, I suspect and hope Trident would win. We have the historical example of the cancellation of the CVA-01class carriers and the political circumstances are sufficiently similar today.

The times has never got an article on defence right yet and the Telegraph is a right wing rag whose sole perogative is to browbeat labour.

 

Cancelling the carriers now saves nothing. CVA-01 was killed while it was still a sketch in a shipbuilders office. CVF has actually had steel cut for it.The money ahs been spent, 50% of the contracts for the whole programme, including all long lead items have been signed (and many delivered), with what you can bet are some very generous cancellation clauses for the shipbuilders. At this point it would cost the government more to kill CVF than it would save.

 

Bare in mind also that the pols of whom you speak also represent the constituencies building these, spread out over 3 yards all over the UK, plus the 80,000 tonnes of steel so far ordered are on the books of corus, who's order books are bare otherwise and would precipitate a collapse of Britsh steel manufacturing if it didn't come through.

 

There is also the fact that the navy has been fighting for these carriers for a long time now, they won't give them up without a fight, and the navy is far more astute at fighting whitehall battles than it was in the sixties. Without the carriers the Royal navy might as well pack up and go home, and that will be the message conveyed by their lordships of the admiralty to the government- whomeve rit may be in 2010.

A lot has been made about the reduced T45 buy but I do suspect that this really is a sensible decision, providing the money goes to the FSC program - the FSC variants will be much more generally useful for national security than the quite specialised '45s. We most likely will not now be fending off waves of Blackjacks and so forth over the Atlantic, and may well spend more time shooting at surface vessels of various capabilities - and the T45's are fitted for but not with much of the kit they'd need.

 We're back to that balanced fleet idea - being able to intercept and prosecute surface and submerged contacts at a distance from the carrier group, with air power on tap is vital.

 

We need to see steel cut on an FSC of some sort shortly though,

 

Ian

 

 

Maybe someone can enlighten me but I was not aware that FSC had even gotten to initial gate yet?  It was my understanding that contracts with companies to begin design studies were just signed this year?  They are not getting built anytime soon.

 

Moreover, the whole C1 and C2 notion to replace asw escorts with decent anti air point defense with 2 different ships is problematic.  As Type 45 shows they might tell you they will buy 12 but you get 6.  Two classes can have 2 separate sets of cuts.  RN should attempt to get one class to replace Type 23s (if they can get them soon enough to replace the last 4 22s great but I would not place such a bet).

 

Six area air defense destroyers is simply far too few.  About all this allows is keeping 2 with each carrier.  During actual operations this is inadequate- numbers still matter.  Consider the Falklands where the TF commander had ships in 4 separate groups such as the inshore amphibious group, picket group, carrier group, and main rear group. From these groups smaller amphibious and daily shore bombardment groups were formed.  In any case there 6 Type 45s mean no picket group and no area anti air for anything but the carriers. Little things like independent operations of surface ship sdqns becomes a bit of an issue with so few DDGs.  Six DDGs for the entire RN is not adequate for operations and thus operations will be curtailed.

 

MOD might state that FSC can be in service by 2018 but with all due respect they need to finalize a design first then get them paid for, ordered, completed, and through acceptence trials.  Did MOD ever decide if the Type 22s can last till 2020?  Happy to be wrong but there is no question in my mind that the RN escort force is going to soon consist of 6 Type 45s and 13 Type 23s and a questionable program that may or may not entirely replace the Type 23s.

 

In any case the writing should have clearly been on the wall when the RN lost 3 Type 23s in the middle of their service lives- HMS Grafton had only been in commission for 9 years!  Ships are retired early, replacement programs are put off, stretched out, then cut and yet some still believe what MOD states as it's future "plans".  I shall fondly remember the RN and miss her always.

 

Yes, the MoD confirmed that they would be extending the batch 3 T22s life into the early 2020s.

 

While I agree that numbers matter, that is an argument that can apply equally to firepower as much as hulls. The Falklands groups were woefully under armed and as much as Sea dart was a decent enough missile, the T-42 batch 1s were simply inadequate platforms, the T-21s as well were not generously equipped either. As it was the Falklands group included the majority of the T-42s available. In a similar surge situation, the RN would probably deploy 3-4 T-45s which would give more than enough cover for a carrier group and an amphibious group.

 

The C1 design needs finalised soon though, and to cut corners I can see them trying to build it on a modified T-45 hull.

This is the main concern - the failure to sort something on the FSC is a potential disaster - I'd love to see more type 45's but right now, the 23's and 22's are much more concerning.

 

That's going to make a huge hole in the fleet if not. The carriers we need to see, on time ideally and with an air wing and a half on tap, but the FSC variants need to start appearing on slipways asap - and there's precious little information about a firm design or purchase arrangement,

 

Ian