To sink a story? The Royal Navy and Harpoon...

Amidst the good news about the arrival of QUEEN ELIZABETH into Portsmouth for the first time, some Facebook and other social media sites have been discussing the Royal Navy at length. These sites commentators generally fall into one of two categories – the first is a long series of rambling ‘things were so much better when I were a lad in the mob and worked 25 hours a day in black & white and the RN is definitely going to the dogs’ brigade, and the other much smaller number are those who focus on the positives, while accepting the actual challenges the RN has got today.

One of the most difficult stories to consider is the forthcoming removal from service of the Harpoon weapons system. To many this signifies that the Royal Navy is in decline, that it will apparently not be able to sink a ship and that this means all is lost. The purpose of this article is to consider whether this is actually the case or not. From the outset Humphrey wants to be clear – no one instinctively welcomes the removal of service without equivalent replacement of a weapons system. But, these are not ordinary times and the financial pressures are enormous.

The history of the RN since WW2 is of trying to provide a range of capabilities to face the threats of the blue water Soviet Navy. Post war the fear of the Sverdlov class cruisers (and the now all but forgotten Italian WW2 battleships sent to the Black Sea fleet as reparations) drove the retention of Battleships and Cruisers well into the 1950s as a means of delivering credible firepower to sink Russian capital ships. One of the primary drivers for the development of the Blackburn Buccaneer was as a ‘Sverdlov killer’ being able to deliver a variety of weapons that could sink it.

Following the move to scrap CVA01 in 1966 the RN moved to fill the buccaneer gap against the next generation of Soviet warships by purchasing the Exocet anti-ship missile from France which entered service in the 1970s across a range of platforms, and which was used to deadly effect in the Falklands War. The Sea Dart also had a credible anti-ship capability too, although this was never tested operationally. Finally the RAF used to maintain their Buccaneer (and later Tornado) force using Martel missiles and later Sea Eagles to conduct maritime anti-shipping strikes.

By the mid 1980s Exocet was showing its limitations and the RN needed a new generation missile to equip the Type 23 frigates then in build. A competition between the Sea Eagle (which later entered service as an airborne missile) and the Harpoon (already in service on the Submarine fleet) saw the decision taken to put Harpoon into service. By the early 1990s it was in use in air, surface and sub surface variants in both the RN and RAF.

The challenge though is that Harpoon was a missile designed to fight a very specific set of threats – namely Soviet task forces in the deep Atlantic where no land was likely to intrude, or other ships get in the way. If you were at the point of firing them at a target, you could be reasonably certain that there would be nothing in the way to distract it.

The 1998 SDR saw the decision taken to delete the Sea Eagle missile from service with the realisation that the missile was (in missile life terms) facing obsolescence and required major work to stay remotely credible. It also took up a lot of magazine space onboard the Invincible class carriers that could be better employed. Finally the real problem was that the threat the missile existed to counter (the Soviet fleet) had ceased to exist. There was simply no credible reason to maintain heavy anti-shipping capability in the RAF, and this part of the Tornado force was disbanded and missiles scrapped.

The sub-surface version was also scrapped a few years later for similar reasons – or arguably because as a submariner friend of Humphrey put it ‘firing 4 Harpoon from a submarine into a surface ship is a really easy way to give away that there is a submarine locally, while also giving them a chance of shooting down or decoying away the missiles in a way that you can’t do with Spearfish torpedoes’.

Missiles are not inert objects that once assembled can be bolted onto a ship and forgotten about. They require a lot of maintenance and work to ensure that they can be fired when needed. They have a finite lifespan and need careful husbandry to ensure the stockpile is able to deliver missiles that work when expected. Some of the real unsung heroes in the Ministry of Defence are the teams of highly skilled civil servant in the various Defence Munitions depots who keep the various types of weaponry available and ready for use.  The RN has known for some years that its Harpoon fleet would reach the end of its natural lifespan, and it would have to make challenging decisions on what to replace it with. The fundamental problem facing Harpoon is that it is the only (non deterrent) missile type that the RN has never used in anger.

What role Harpoon?

The RN is one of the relatively few navy’s to have employed its missile systems in anger at sea. Since the 1960s it has used a wide range of missiles and capabilities on operations against very credible threats – with one glaring exception. It has never used, nor been in a position where it was likely to use, a ‘heavy’ or long range ship launched Surface-Surface Guided Missile.

During the Falklands there was no opportunity to engage the Argentine forces with the Exocet or Sea Dart in anti-shipping mode. In the Falklands and both gulf wars the Lynx fleet did superb work using the Sea Skua missile to engage and damage/destroy enemy patrol vessels. In Libya in 2011 a regime frigate was reportedly damaged or sunk by NATO air dropped bombs whilst alongside – but in none of these wars did the RN have a need, or opportunity, to employ their heavy missiles.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

As time has moved on the nature of maritime warfare has changed dramatically – the days of expecting to fight in the GIUK gap have gone. The most likely circumstances where an RN ship is going to be fighting these days will be in the littoral – namely close off shore, usually in very crowded waters with a variety of friendly, hostile and neutral warships and a plethora of merchant shipping in the area. We expect our people to fight in very crowded, very difficult waters where there is no certainty that the contact on your radar is a friend, foe or someone completely different.

Harpoon as a missile is simply not the right missile to employ in this sort of situation. As an aging missile with limited capability, it excels at ruining the day of any ship it hits. But you need to be certain that if you fire a long range ‘fire and forget’ missile that when it gets to where you’ve told it to go, that it hits the right target.

At the same time the likely opponents facing the RN today will not be heavy armoured cruisers or missile frigates. You only have to look at the sort of areas that the RN is deploying to, and glance at Janes Fighting Ships to realise that the possible foes do not really operate a ‘heavy navy’. The sort of foe we will face will likely have fast attack craft, light patrol vessels and maybe one or two older frigates – in other words, a very light ‘brown water navy’ not a heavy duty ‘blue water navy’.

What this means is firstly, you need to be certain of what you are shooting at, and be certain that you’re not firing at the wrong ship. The risk of catastrophe if you fired and sank a friendly or neutral warship by mistake could have massive diplomatic and political ramifications as well as huge loss of life. If you read ‘One Hundred Days’ by Admiral Sandy Woodward, you’ll recall his account of nearly shooting down a passenger jet that seemed likely to be an Argentine jet. He recognised then that the wrong call would likely have cost Britain the moral high ground, and the war.

Therefore the need for a long range missile falls away quickly when you consider you’ll want to be certain you know what you’re firing at. Secondly, you have to consider the level of risk politicians want to take, or the level of escalation they’re willing to live with. The loss of a warship can see hundreds of people killed – the sinking of the Belgrano was the largest single loss of life in the Falklands War and was by far the most contentious act of the war.

Politicians are by nature risk averse and do not want to do things that will see people killed unnecessarily – bluntly put, it is hard to see in an era when the philosophy seems to be ‘minimal casualties’ Ministers approving the launch of an SSGM to sink a ship and possibly kill 300-400 people in one incident. Note Humphrey specifically says ‘Ministers’ – that is intentional too. It is often forgotten that neither the CO of CONQUEROR or Admiral Woodward had approval under their Rules of Engagement to attack the Belgrano – it had to be escalated to the War Cabinet and ultimately the Prime Minister to approve.

Similarly in the Falklands the Argentine Exocet struggled to identify targets (for example the loss of Atlantic conveyor) and in the ‘tanker wars’ of the 1980s in the Gulf, many innocent merchantmen, and US warships were struck by errant SSMs fired by both sides. The reality is that in crowded waters, heavy anti-ship missiles are not the incredibly precise and accurate weapon people think they are.

It is hard to envisage in a time when Politicians want to exert ever closer scrutiny of conducting military operations that a decision on whether to launch a SSGM would be delegated to a CO or Task Force commander. This would be a Ministerial level decision and if it went wrong, could cause the Government to fall. In other words, Harpoon as a long range anti-ship killer as currently configured is arguably unusable, because it cannot necessarily offer Ministers the assurances they rightly seek about avoidance of collateral damage in the waters where it would realistically be used. Simply put, we have a missile that Politicians arguably cannot use for fear of the consequences if it went wrong.

What will happen then?

With the lifespan of the Harpoon missile limited, the RN faces a difficult choice at a time of ever tighter funding constraints. Do you spend money to extend or refurbish the missile, noting that a ‘quick fix’ may keep a partial capability but reduce likelihood of buying a new missile if one became available (e.g. the Treasury may ask why if your reliable and reasonably expensive second hand car is working, you suddenly want a  very expensive new sports car two years later).

Alternatively you could buy from the market right now and put the latest Harpoon variant into service (or peer equivalent), noting that this would tie up a lot of money that the RN doesn’t necessarily have to hand and which is for a missile that will probably never end up being fired in anger.

The final option is in the short term the least palatable – take the Harpoon out of service as planned, but gap the capability. However, note there are quite a lot of very capable ‘dual role’ missiles which can attack both maritime and land targets due to enter service in the medium term (particularly in the US). A buy of this sort of dual role capability would not only enhanced the RN anti-ship capability, but more importantly provide a credible land attack capability that could complement/replace the TLAM in due course. Presentationally the final option is by far the most risky, but also the one that gives the best long term result for the Royal Navy. There are risks involved – particularly the gap between Harpoon and Sea Skua going out of service and the Sea Venom system, which will be air launched, fully entering service.

So the choice the RN appears to have made is to rely on investment in its short -medium range anti surface capabilities (e.g. guns up to 4.5”, air launched anti-ship missiles with a range out to about 20km and torpedoes). All of these provide credible capability against the threats that the RN is likely to face in the maritime domain.  While the theoretical capability of Harpoon will doubtless be missed, it is hard to see what threat it alone could counter in these environments that the other systems cannot. The RN is more than capable of sinking the vessels foolish enough to pick a fight with it – the loss of Harpoon will not change that.

It is also worth remembering that the UK concept of operations as laid out in defence reviews going back 20 years is simple – we are not going to fight alone or in isolation now. If we go to war, and we need a heavy anti-ship capability, then this is something that our friends and allies can contribute. The UK brings a lot of highly niche capabilities to most coalitions, so its not unreasonable to go to allies and expect them to provide something similar. However, we also have to remember that the chances of there being a combined maritime operation against a peer naval capability, requiring a long range anti-ship missile being fired with the attendant casualties and risks of escalation remains exceptionally slim indeed.

The biggest damage done to the RN over this whole affair seems to have been to its standing in the media and public eye. By letting the media portray the situation as akin to the RN being unable to fire anything at all, and making out that the fleet is in imminent danger, the RN lost control of the narrative.  Listening to some commentators out there on the net, you’d think that the RN was in the business of going to sea, with CO’s enjoying delegated authority to casual fling harpoon missiles at putative foes in-between wondering whether they wanted snorkers or babies heads for dinner. In fact the Harpoon is a class of missile that hasn’t been employed in anger ever – sadly this point has been lost amongst a general rumbling of discontent.

The Harpoon has been an excellent capability for the last 30 years, but like all weapon systems  it will need to retire. The RN has been forced to make really difficult choices over funding and chosen to prioritise other systems instead. Don’t forget that under the operating model that Defence uses now, if the RN felt a Harpoon replacement was that important, then NAVY command could have chosen to reprioritise funding from their budget to make it happen. That they did not should tell you a great deal about the importance the RN places on Harpoon right now, and the even greater importance of prioritising the right replacement in due course, not the halfway house tomorrow.