Is the British Royal Navy fit for purpose?

Naval Strength Means What?

The UK has a decision to make in light of the Navy’s preparedness to meet future threats.

The UK House of Commons Defence Select Committee’s recent report: ‘We’re going to need a bigger navy’ detailing the under-armament of the Royal Navy has painfully highlighted the indecision that exists within the Treasury and government.

Royal Navy At Sea

The report found that the next decade is likely to produce significant dangers to the UK and her armed forces; in particular her naval fleet which has been left vulnerable and unable to properly meet these threats. The Committee found that the Royal Navy in its current form leaves much to be desired in its readiness to counter adversaries to the UK. This was found to be the case in the simple number of assets available to the navy, the relative armament of those assets compared to allies and adversaries, and the availability of these few, under armed, assets. The Committee whimsically stated: “failure to fund the ha’porth of tar the Royal Navy needs has literally spoiled the ships'', and in fact “budget priorities of successive governments have delivered a fleet of porcupines (well defended herbivores)”; to summarise its findings that successive, penny pinching governments have resulted in less capable and more incident prone (often mechanical) warships.

In light of this, the question has to be asked: what is expected of the navy? More to the point; what is the purpose of the navy?

As a result of Boris Johnson’s ambitions for a ‘Global Britain’ the navy has been tasked with performing many more operations further from home waters than has been expected of it in recent years. These operations most notably took the newly commissioned fleet flagship, aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, and her escorting multinational task force some 43,000 miles on her round trip to the Pacific. On this voyage she docked in more than 40 ports in 30 different countries: “flying the flag for Global Britain - projecting our influence, signalling our power, engaging with our friends and reaffirming our commitment to addressing the security challenges of today and tomorrow” - Defence Secretary Ben Wallace on the CSG21 before its departure in May 2021.

Flag flying though is not the point of a navy. It is a useful ancillary function but obviously cannot take precedence over its primary function of defending Britain and her interests. It is this primary function which has been neglected and allowed to ‘spoil’ ships. How can the navy be expected to defend Britain if it cannot bring the fight to her adversaries?

Currently, the Royal Navy’s conventional forces consist of only 30 major combatants; of these only six are destroyers and 12 are frigates while there are two aircraft carriers.

This represents a massive imbalance in force. In order for the two aircraft carriers to safely operate they must typically be escorted by at least two frigates, one destroyer and one attack submarine (of which Britain has seven including some very old examples). With training and repair cycles this would reduce the Royal Navy to an escort service with no ships left to protect the UK’s home waters.

In any case, the navy’s 18 major surface combatants are woefully lacking in offensive capabilities; and in the case of the carriers even lacking defensive systems to protect against missile attack. A 2021 study by defence commentator Commander Tom Sharp (Ret’d) found that the Royal Navy’s major surface assets were lacking in offensive capabilities compared to peer nations, as represented through his rankings of their fielding of the systems listed below:

1. Naval Gunfire Support capable weapon: gun bore > 100mm;

2. Close in Weapon System: multi-barrel, rapid-rate-of-fire gun;

3. Point Defence Missile System: <30nm range, not suitable for task group protection;

4. Surface to Air Missile: >30nm range, suitable for air defence;

5. Anti-Ballistic Missile;

6. Surface to Surface Missile;

7. Land attack Missile: e.g. Tomahawk

8. Torpedo

9. Helicopter

Each navy was given a score out of nine, with one point awarded for every one of the capabilities listed above present on a given platform. The average across the eight navies compared (British, US, French, Canadian, Danish, Australian, Chinese, and Russian) being a score of 6. The Royal Navy’s surface fleet managed only a 4.25, due largely to the Type 45 and incoming Type 26 having no dedicated land attack or torpedo launch systems. Instead both must rely on Tomahawk missiles launched from Astute Class submarines and torpedoes launched by their onboard helicopters. This is not something that most defence analysts would expect of a supposedly world class naval force.

It seems that the Royal Navy’s fleet is not only made up of well defended herbivores but also some very large white elephants (as discussed in this linked article); expensive capital ships wholly underprepared to defend themselves from all but the most minor attacks.

Fortunately though, this is a problem which seems to have been recognised by the UK defence establishment. The Commons’ Defence Committee’s report, while acknowledging that the Royal Navy remains one of the more capable forces in the world, also recognises its failings. Admiral Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff, has acknowledged these criticisms as “very fair”. As well as this, the introduction of the type 31 and type 32 General Purpose destroyers will bring a valuable lift in hull numbers which will be of great use in global presence operations to the Royal Navy despite their under armament.

This still leaves a decision to be made though: does the UK want a force capable of fighting a high end war against a peer adversary, or a navy built around shows of force and flying the flag without the backing of offensive capabilities? Because as it stands the Royal Navy is not equipped for the high end threats it is likely to face in the next decade.