Thin Pinstriped Line

The Times has revealed that the MOD is considering plans to scrap or mothball the entirety of the British Army’s Challenger 2 force of main battle tanks and possibly its Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicles as well. These cuts form part of options under consideration for the current Defence Review, and if accepted would be arguably one of the most fundamental changes to the British Army in the last 100 years. It is always worth sounding a note of gentle caution when Options papers get leaked. Defence Reviews and force structure arguments are built on the bedrock of a foundation of Options. These are intended to consider how different ideas could play out in order to save money, change force structures or do things differently in the armed forces. For example, an options paper may look at different ways to save money by consolidating military training estate, or another may consider what would happen if more money were to be spent on enhancing weapons fits to ships. Image by Minist...

In what has to be one of the surest outbreaks of ‘summer silly season’ in a few years, there are reports online today, which have made it as far as a Daily Telegraph comment piece in under 12 hours, that the Royal Navy is poised to sell some Type 23 frigates to Greece. To say that this is an odd story is an understatement, it seems to have materialised from nowhere and been hosted on a single Greek website prior to being picked up more widely. The veracity of the article is unclear, but it is worth considering a few points when hearing rumours of ship sales like this. The Type 23 force, currently 13 hulls strong, has been in service since the late 1980s and represents the backbone of the RN escort force. Used for both general purpose patrol (five hulls), and for specialised anti-submarine warfare work (eight hulls), the class has been worked extremely hard in its life. Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright Originally designed for an 18 year life cycle in the no...

The Defence Secretary has strongly hinted that the ongoing defence review will focus heavily on the sub sea threat. This covers the mysterious world beneath the oceans, and the critical strategic importance of cables to transfer data to power the global economy, and the lengths some states will go to interfere with this. This statement is covered in a lengthy article in the Daily Telegraph today, which explores in more detail the challenges and threats posed. This is a fascinating area to look at, not just because of the threat, but also because of how it shows the changing nature of operations and the areas where the UK may need to prioritise defence spending in future. The strategic importance of undersea cables is not a new phenomenon – at the outbreak of both WW1 and WW2, literally the first acts of the war were for the Royal Navy and associated Dominion Navies to cut German cables to cut them off from the world, isolating their communications, preventing orders reaching colo...

The Royal Navy has apparently been ‘humiliated’ because a ship has returned to port with a possible mechanical issue. This seems to be the nub of the story in some of today’s papers, which breathlessly report that HMS TRENT has retuned to port in Gibraltar for an unspecified breakdown. Is this a case of humiliation, or is it actually fairly routine occurrence? HMS TRENT recently commissioned and sailed to Gibraltar from the UK, in order to support operations in the Med. There is some speculation that she is also to act as an informal ‘guardship’ in Gibraltar, providing additional presence in the territory in addition to the Royal Navy Gibraltar Squadron, although it is likely that she’ll be on a much larger roaming mission than just the territorial waters. On arrival in Gibraltar she then spent three days alongside before sailing, before returning just 12 hours later. According to reports she needed to be ‘dragged’ alongside by tugs when she returned to the port. In the eyes ...

The Cabinet Office has published a ‘call for evidence’ to support the Integrated Security Review. This is a chance for people to submit evidence to offer their views on some of the challenges facing UK national security priorities and try to help shape the focus of the review authors on what the future could hold. The call for evidence is accompanied by a four page document setting out both the context that the review is operating in, and also some of the questions that need to be addressed. It is a fascinating read as an insight into the decision making process, and the likely direction of travel that will result. For starters it is telling that the UK Government sees the future as being one of a global order where climate change, economic challenge and technological change drive much of the worlds problems. The document talks of the challenges around increased poverty, economic problems and how corporations will have GDP bigger than countries – making them highly credible ac...

The news of the appalling tragedy in Beirut, where an explosion in the port has caused catastrophic damage to the city as a whole is deeply saddening. The scale of the disaster is likely to grow in coming days, as a city and state already under all manner of pressures find itself stretched to the absolute limit. While international aid will be forthcoming, it will be a complex business to provide this aid to a city that reportedly has over 300,000 homeless people right now as a result of this catastrophe. The United Kingdom will doubtless come to the aid of the Lebanon, and provide aid and support in order to help the people of this tiny country return to some semblance of normalcy. One of the first acts that the UK has announced is that the Royal Navy survey ship  HMS ENTERPRISE , currently operating in the Med, will be dispatched to carry out a port survey. This doesn’t sound like much and doubtless many people will be scratching their heads and saying ‘is that it’? In fac...