Thin Pinstriped Line

    HMS VANGUARD has ‘failed’ to successfully launch a Trident missile as part of her return to service trials in the USA. This marks the second test in a row that has not been successful for the Royal Navy. Is this a cause for alarm and should we worry? In a word, no. Crown Copyright What do we know has happened? The Royal Navy and US Navy share a pool of Trident missiles, which the UK can draw on 58 to load its SSBN force and conduct tests. As part of the shared agreement on Trident operations, the missile compartment on the VANGUARD class is essentially a scaled down US Navy missile compartment and the launch process follows US procedures. The policy in place is that when a UK or US SSBN completes refuelling, which is a multi-year process of refitting a vessel, the final stage before the submarine takes its place in the deterrent patrol cycle is a test firing of a missile to ensure it works as planned. This is known as a DASO (Demonstration and Shakedown Operation) to con...

  You could forgive supporters of the British Royal Navy for feeling incredibly jealous this morning as news broke of the plans to drastically increase the size of the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) surface fleet. To a cynic, it would represent a sea change from the British tradition of years of barely managed decline, cuts to force levels, stockpiles, infrastructure and shore support and an attitude that somehow less is more if you insert “world class” in front of the ship title. To see a ‘Royal’ Navy set out a clear plan for growth that will, if implemented in full result in the RAN possessing a significantly larger escort force than the RN is both exciting and depressing that the UK lacks a similar sense of aspiration and ambition. But will this really come to pass, or will this fade into a future of recriminations and half delivered goals? The RAN commissioned a review in 2023 into the size of the surface fleet, and the response was formally published on 20 Feb 2024. In broa...

  The Daily Telegraph has continued its campaign of encouraging its readership to be scared about things that don’t impact them in the slightest this week by reporting the outrageous ‘news’ that the Royal Navy is looking at giving training in climate change. Apparently this a bad thing. Cue lots of angry commentators moaning about wokery and demanding that the military is used to defend the UK and not act as a tool of social engineering. Is this the case, or in fact is there more to this than meets the eye? The more complex reality is that whether the armed forces like it or not, climate change is something that will need to be factored into practically every aspect of military life in the years to come. This will range from tactical issues around kit through to strategic trends that will shape how the UK as a nation engages on the global stage. It is not something that can be ignored or dismissed as ‘Whitehall woke nonsense’. Indeed the Defence Select Committee has written exte...

  If you believe some of the more hysterical defence reports recently, HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH has returned to port with propellor issues for emergency repairs, prompting the Royal Navy to send ‘plastic warships’ (P2000s) to sea in her place to take part in Exercise Cold Response, alongside the carrier HMS PRINCE OF WALES. By any reasonable measure the RN has plummeted to yet another nadir after years of relentless cuts. But is this a reasonable assessment of the situation? What has happened is far less dramatic, despite Daily Mail reporting suggesting that the ship returned to port, which was an outright lie, as she had never left port in the first place, engineers have reportedly identified issues with the propellor shaft on the QE. A decision was taken late in the day to delay sailing and have the potential fault looked at and fixed rather than let the ship sail and potentially experience issues while deployed. This is not an easy call to make – to cancel the sailing of your fleet...

  February 2 nd is sometimes referred to as ‘groundhog day’ referring to both a curious tradition in the US around an animal selecting a weather prediction scroll, or the movie involving Bill Murray. It has come to mean, in popular consciousness, living the same thing on endless repeat. Frankly, ground hog day was the phrase that came to mind reading the latest ‘the sky is falling’ article from the Daily Telegraph, published on 2 nd Feb 2024 about the Royal Navy and the Falkland Islands. Unusually written by their US Editor, rather than their excellent Defence team, the article focused on the fact that the Royal Navy hasn’t sent a major escort ship to the Falkland Islands since 2017 and this is apparently a bad thing. Cue complaints about defence cuts, the threat from Argentina, the obligatory visit from everyone’s favourite rent-a-quote Admiral Lord Alan ‘I Used To Be First Sea Lord Doncha Know’ West and you have the makings of a classic defence ground hog day story – long on ...