Type 45 Availability - Don't Believe The Naysayers

 

There are times when doing blogging on defence matters that it can all feel a little bit ‘groundhog day’, and given this was last week, this feels strangely apt. To misquote Marko Ramius, once again we seem to be going into the blogosphere to fight against the ill informed commentariat about the Type 45 availability.

The news breaking today (07 Feb) is that apparently all 6 Type 45s are alongside or in refit, and that this puts the UK at risk as it has no ‘active’ Type 45 destroyers. As usual the media are focusing on the location of the ships, not their actual readiness status.

There are several issues to unpack here and contextualise, and its really important that these are considered when trying to assess this issue. The first is what do we mean by ‘active’ warship, and when is one ‘active’?

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The cycle of Royal Navy vessel operations can best be summed up by their availability. Some ships will always be in deep refit – they will be usually internally gutted, lacking essential parts, and a ships company and be in the hands of refit yards. They will be out of commission for many months, if not years, and are not available for tasking. Right now there are two Type 45s alongside in Birkenhead in this state – HMS DARING and DAUNTLESS.

Then there are the ships returning from refit and working up for training and deployment, or those about to go into a shorter term refit, updating equipment and keeping a ships company, but not necessarily immediately ready for sea. These ships are usually weeks – months available for tasking. Right now HMS DUNCAN is in this state, and is about to emerge imminently from this refit, and begin the process of regenerating to be able to deploy later this year.

Other ships are ready to go into refit, and will be at a lower state of readiness as they wind down ahead of being worked on. Currently HMS DRAGON has entered that stage where although she could be sent to sea if required, the plans for her involve getting her to enter a several month refit to generate her for operations much later this year / early next year, depending on her programme.

Finally there are ships that are ready for sea in all respects and able to conduct operations, but who may be conducting short term maintenance or dockyard work. This means that if tasked, they can sail in a matter of hours – days, but their short term programme has them in a port on a temporary basis.

Right now there are two type 45s in this position – HMS DIAMOND and DEFENDER. Both of these ships returned from a major 9 month deployment 7 weeks ago, and are now undergoing routine maintenance and alongside activity to carry out operations and tasking as required in due course. They could be sent to sea at very short notice if required.

Immediately we can see that of the 6 Type 45s, two are available now (DIAMOND and DEFENDER), one is available now in more pressing circumstances (DRAGON), one is available very shortly (DUNCAN) and two more are not available. So, if needed, 50% of the Type 45 fleet is capable of going to sea now if called on to do so, in support of operations.

The problem is that we define ‘active’ by seeing ships at sea – and after all the purpose of a Navy is to send a ship to sea – if not, why have a navy at all?

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

Part of the challenge is that the RN operating model has not changed in terms of ships alongside or deployed for many years. Historically if you look at pictures of dockyards, they will be full of ships that often rarely moved for weeks or months as they were following the same broad principles. According to social media ‘this is when we had a navy’, because apparently having ships alongside is a good thing, unless you are on social media and looking at pictures of an empty modern dockyard, because this means that instead of having a busy working navy we instead ‘don’t have a navy anymore’. To add to this, if we have lots of ships alongside now, it doesn’t mean ‘this is when we have a navy’ it means ‘the navy is going to the dogs because they’re not at sea, so we don’t have a navy anymore’. Confused? Welcome to the club…

The reality is that RN ships do spend time in port- but so does every other warship on the planet. No warship is commissioned, sails and never comes alongside again. Instead the RN sweats its assets incredibly hard, and keeps them at sea and deployed far more effectively than the vast majority of navies.

So, why are they in Portsmouth and not at sea? Firstly its because the two available 45s are just back from spending 9 months away on deployment. They need routine maintenance, because hugely complex and highly advanced machinery needs to be taken care of, and there are plenty of other evolutions to do around training and ship husbandry.

Do those ships need to be at sea right now, and if so, what do we want them to do? Sending a ship to sea is a financially costly commitment, and eats into operating hours, crew goodwill and the availability of the platform – does it make sense to send ships to sea for ‘shits and giggles’ or to give the image that the Royal Navy is doing something, or is it better to wait?

What is the operational effect that the commentators tonight want to have by sending a Type 45 to sea? Is it to sail about, burning fuel and looking impressive? Is it to deliver training to the crew – and if so, what training, how does that fit with the wider training programme, what does that mean for wider objectives for the crew etc?

If they need to go to sea on an exercise, what is the exercise you want them to do – is it an international multi-national exercise like COLD RESPONSE, which the RN is currently taking a very major role in with a carrier group, or is it something else? You can’t just randomly turn up on a major exercise at the last minute, they require a lot of training and work up. Also, if you want to work with partners, they also need to have ships ready and willing to work together as well.

The ships will already have a pre-agreed programme involving deployments to meet MOD and wider Government strategic goals throughout 2022 – so if you rush them to sea now, are you delaying this deployment if it means deferring essential maintenance? What is the short term goal you are trying to meet by sending a ship to sea just for the sake of it?

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

We seem in part to define our national worth by assuming that if we don’t have ships at sea, we’ve somehow failed as a nation. This slightly odd view needs to be challenged, because go to any major naval dockyard around the world right now and you’ll see lots of ships alongside in varying states of readiness. Instead we’ll now see lots of talking heads intone gravely about how we’re failing as a nation for not having a destroyer at sea right now, despite not being able to explain what precisely this ship should be doing, or how sending it to sea helps with its bigger mission.

The fact is that the way the RN works is changing dramatically. Singelton deployments by escort ships are going to become ever rarer to the point of not happening. The future is task group operations and working as a coherent force to deliver force from the sea. The new model Royal Navy is not the RN of the 1990s and 2000s when it send isolated escorts on trips around the globe.

The Carrier Strike Group is the centre for much of what the Type 45s will be up to for their careers to come. This means aligning readiness and exercise plans and deployments with the Carriers, to ensure that if one goes to sea, she sails with an escort of Type 45s able to provide the air defence needed as part of a Task Group.

We have to look past the point of going ‘but all the ships are here’ to ask ourselves, why are they here? The reason  is simple – some of those ships have worked incredibly hard for most of last year on deployments and will continue to work hard this year. Right now they are ready if required, but are primarily preparing to support the Carriers and other high value ships that they exist to protect during what is likely to be a busy year.

It is time we took a more pragmatic view here, and actually there is a lot of good news beneath the surface. The simple fact is that barely 6 weeks after returning from a global deployment, both 45s are ready and able to go to sea. The RN has a third 45 regenerating shortly to ensure continued coverage throughout the year of 2-3 Type 45s available, ready to deploy or deployed and ensuring constant availability.

The location of the ship is of far less relevance and importance than her ability to deploy to do the job the government of the day asks it to do. In the Type 45 force, the Royal Navy has an exceptional and well proven platform, that is available in numbers to do the job asked of it.

This good availability is linked to a wider positive state of the modern Royal Navy. Already this year, HMS PRINCE OF WALES and other RN ships are deployed on exercise in the high north, alongside Royal Marines in Norway. In the Gulf Royal Navy ships have successfully interdicted millions of pounds of illegal drugs and provided maritime stability to the region. In the South Atlantic HMS PROTECTOR is engaged in ice operations in the Antarctic, while in the Pacific the Royal Navy has delivered life saving aid to Tonga. This is an incredibly busy force working exceptionally hard.

This is a Royal Navy that right now has ships, aircraft and people operationally deployed in the West Indies, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Antarctic, Med, Gulf, Indian Ocean, North Pacific and South Pacific. There are Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel deployed across the globe in both number and capability, and this will only continue throughout the year ahead.

Far from being a failure as some might see it, the modern Royal Navy is one of the most capable, operational, and busy naval forces in the whole world. It matters not whether the pair of Type 45s in Portsmouth do maintenance there, or in Gibraltar or Singapore or Diego Garcia (all locations they have visited in the past 9 months) – what matters is that if their nation calls them to deploy on a job, then they are available to meet the tasking of the day, whatever, or wherever it may be.