Gee Whizz, No CIWS!

It is a truth universally acknowledged among public commentators that the Royal Navy doesn’t have a clue what it is doing when it comes to the armament of its aircraft carriers.

This week there has been a minor explosion of concern on various sites about the news that HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH (QE) will only have 2 of her 3 planned Phalanx mounts fitted in the current upkeep period, with the last one to be fitted towards the end of 2020.

This is apparently shocking, awful, proof the RN has no clue and apparently our carriers are now vulnerable and defenceless. Lots of complicated diagrams are floating around on some sites that show how theoretically QE is at risk from an incoming missile, plane or other risk. How on earth could the Royal Navy let this shambolic state of affairs happen?

The truth of the matter is a little more prosaic than this, and it is worth exploring in a little detail to understand what is going on here.

Night Time F35 landings at sea- Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The Royal Navy has historically since the dawn of the missile age relied on a light armament fitting for its carriers. While HMS UNICORN (an Aircraft Maintenance Carrier) may have conducted shore bombardments with her guns during Korea, the Royal Navy has not traditionally put a major defensive battery on the post war carrier force as guns went out of vogue, and missiles became more common. By the end of her life HMS EAGLE had a smattering of manually aimed Seacat launchers, while HMS ARK ROYAL was equipped with some saluting guns.

The INVINCIBLE class entered service with a Sea Dart launcher, and during the Falklands, she fired 6 missiles during the attack on ATLANTIC CONVEYOR. This represents probably the only time in the last nearly 75 years that a British aircraft carrier has fired weapons in anger. Sea Dart was removed from all three ships during their later life, and the space converted to carry additional aircraft and munitions.

The QUEEN ELIZABETH class are entering service without any planned missile systems, reflecting the traditional British view that carriers should rely on their escorts to fight the AAW battle and leave them to operate carriers. This is at odds with other navies, many of whom equip their carriers with a range of SAMs to contribute to Task Group defence.

For the QE, her entry to service saw her carrying a variety of small calibre weapon systems, which have been upgraded during her most recent maintenance period to include Phalanx CIWS. The plan is to see three systems fitted, and space exists for a 4^th mounting, prior to her first operational deployment in 2021 to the Asia Pacific region.

The news that only two of the three Phalanx are being fitted now has caused suggestions by internet commentators that somehow the ship is at material risk in some way. This is an easy assertion to make, but is arguably baseless.

While it is easy to get on the internet and post lots of diagrams of equipment and assertions about how the RN doesn’t know what it is doing, the most important thing to realise when looking at these sorts of debates is to understand that there is only a tiny number of people qualified to make a decision about the threat facing the carrier and the required defensive fit.

The information required to make the call is more than just a simple comparison with like for like weapons and open source threats. It requires a deep understanding of the assessed threats, the actual operating capabilities of defensive weapons and their likely targets and a comprehensive understanding of the whole defensive capabilities of the ship and wider Task Group, which will include both hard and soft kill measures. This sort of information is not available via google.

Unless you are privy to the totality of information about the situation and threats, it is simply not possible to make an authoritative and definitive judgement on what does, or does not constitute a threat for the QE, and whether having two or three Phalanx systems fitted right now puts her at risk.

Ark Royal firing Sea Dart 

The other factor to consider is that, contrary to what some may think, the MOD does not have a ‘Department to mess things around for the sheer hell of it’ embedded in most HQs. If a decision was taken to not fit the final Phalanx this year, then it will have been taken for extremely good reasons.For example, there could be financial reasons, or it could be the case that the time required to install the third would eat into other parts of the work period and disrupt other planned activity. 

A lot of the hyperbole about whether the carrier is at risk or not is based on people assuming that QUEEN ELIZABETH will deploy as a singleton unit, without the benefit of layered protection in her escorting Task Group. People often forget that QUEEN ELIZABETH will rarely, if ever, sail on her own outside of UK waters. A large part of the transformation of the RN in recent years has been to help prepare for the shift in mentality from that of a ‘singleton deployer’ navy to instead be a Task Group navy.

When the first Carrier Strike Group puts to sea in 2021, it will be one of the best protected and effective forces that the Royal Navy has ever operated. The investment in recent years in both the Sea Viper and the Sea Ceptor missile systems have provided the RN with world beating anti-air capability, capable of tackling threats out to a considerable distance from the force.

This is coupled with the discrete and exceptionally capable ‘soft kill’ measures that are an integral part of UK maritime tactics. While less glamorous or of interest to many internet commentators, the suite of capabilities that will be available to a task group commander are extremely capable. They are also an excellent reminder of the wider capability of the UK defence and electronics industry, who have proven remarkably capable of producing world beating equipment to fit to RN ships.

While it is understandable to be concerned that there are currently fewer weapons than planned onboard, it is important to keep in mind that the CIWS system is but one part of a layered defence, and that there is an awful lot of UK and allied capability out there to protect the carrier in the exceptionally unlikely event of the ship needing to use it for real.

The fixation on single items means it is sometimes easy to lose track of what the bigger picture is. A single gun mount is not going to be fitted for about another 18 months on a ship that isn’t scheduled to operationally deploy for another two years. 

When you look at the issue rationally, it is easy to wonder what all the fuss is actually about. QUEEN ELIZABETH isn’t going to deploy operationally until 2021. The Royal Navy has used CIWS for nearly 40 years now in various forms and has never once fired one operationally. It is therefore not being too laid back to assume that on a deployment to the East Coast of the USA this year, she is probably unlikely to need all three working CIWS fitted. The fact that the likely risks to that ship, based on her operational plans are low, and that it is realistically unlikely to expect her to come under attack whilst off the East Coast of the USA means the RN is not realistically risking the carrier or her crew.

The law of unintended consequences is that good intentions can often cause problems or make life more difficult for people. Everyone getting vexed on this issue clearly cares about the RN and its people, but this can paradoxically make things more difficult elsewhere as a result of pressure to fix a problem that doesn’t exist to mitigate ill informed comment.

Humphreys strictly personal view is that sometimes people get too seized by the low level technical issues, and don’t take a step back to realise that they are only seeing part of the problem. It is fantastic that people care passionately about the Royal Navy, and it is great to see that there is lively debate about issues. But the risk this sort of internet based ‘I demand something be done to fix a problem that I perceive to exist even though I don’t have all the facts in my possession’  campaign is that it can cause unintended consequences.

If sufficient pressure were applied to the MOD to fix the issue urgently, then what has to be stopped as a result to make this happen? Would money need to be found in year that causes other more important projects to slip, or would the time required to fit the mount impact on other aspects of the planned maintenance work and prevent equally vital work happening elsewhere onboard? Bluntly, sometimes it is possible to care too much and end up hurting the people you profess to support by making their life harder, not easier as a result of good intentions.

Whenever this sort of debate happens, there is always a chorus of people complaining that the RN is putting a ship at risk and what happens if whichever ‘wonder missile’ of the day is fired at it. Simply put, if an advanced anti-ship missile is fired, then we are at war – which would suggest either the ship is closed up for action stations, and is thus well protected against this risk, or someone has just launched a surprise attack without warning.

The former situation is unlikely to happen, the latter even less so, particularly as it would arguably represent the single biggest intelligence failure in British maritime history – yet you still hear people going on about the risk to QE from random Chinese anti-ship missiles that are apparently the latest ‘cool thing’. If we’re in a state where China is intentionally firing anti-ship cruise missiles at QE in the next two years without prior warning, which is resulting in the CIWS being used, then frankly we have far bigger things to worry about than whether she has two or three CIWS fitted.

Perhaps the last word on the subject should go to the current COMATG, a prolific tweeter and someone who is also a hugely experienced officer. He diplomatically pointed out that as the Task Group commander likely to work with the platforms involved, he was perfectly content with the planned outfits and timelines.

Command Rebrief...

If it is good enough for the spiritual successor of Nelson to say he is happy with the situation, then that’s good enough for Humphrey.