Thin Pinstriped Line

The inspiration for this article came from a recent Guardian article which was talking about the role of the RN’s OPV fleet post Brexit, and which placed some fairly dismissive views on the role of HMS SEVERN during her lengthy west indies deployment. In turn this sparked a wider debate on Twitter about whether ‘forward basing’ was the answer for the RN in the West Indies. The Royal Navy has had a long history in the West Indies from buccaneers and naval battles of old through to a pretty much continuous presence for the last 200 years. Throughout the Cold War the RN commitment in the region was built around a naval presence headquartered in Bermuda (HMS MALABAR) and supported by a small number of frigates to support the UK colonial commitment to the area. Administered initially under the post of ‘Senior Naval Officer West Indies’ (SNOWI) which was disbanded in 1976, the RN presence reduced to a rotating escort, and HMS MALABAR (used for cold war duties, and which closed in the 1...

Over the years Humphrey has become somewhat cynical of the news cycle about Defence. Most weeks of the year see the same cyclical series of stories about how the UK is no longer relevant, how the RN couldn’t defend Falmouth from a horde of French marines in Pedalos and how the Argentines clearly pose a major threat to the Falkland Islands. The latest iteration in this is the now traditional outburst that the UK is somehow causing a rise in tension in the South Atlantic by conducting routine exercises in the Falklands. While it is easy to get either easily riled at the ridiculousness of the situation, or get worked up at the sheer outrage of it all, the pronouncements on the story perhaps show how weak the current Argentine case is, and hint at desperation measures to get the news story away from internal problems.   Breaking the story down, it is essentially the latest in a long series of claims by Argentina that the UK is attempting to militarise the Falklands – this see...

To mark Valentines Day this year, the Royal Navy put out a small number of press releases showing how some deployed ships like HMS DARING had tried to mark the occasion. For instance, there was a picture of the crew on the flight deck, spelling out an ‘I love you’ message (news release is HERE ). This particular story got quite a lot of media attention in the UK press, with a variety of outlets carrying it and giving coverage to the story. But, it also had its detractors – the superb website ‘Think Defence’ did not appreciate the story, feeling that it perhaps didn't reflect the RN in a truly professional manner – their views can be found HERE . The view expressed was essentially that in pushing across a human interest story, the RN was not demonstrating itself to be as professional as its peers in other navies, who perhaps did not feel the need to provide equivalent stories. This debate perhaps goes to the heart of the question about how we can push the case for Defence in ...

The news in the UK is dominated today by the announcements of mass redundancies in  the BAE shipbuilding business, with almost 2000 jobs being lost at three sites in Portsmouth and Scotland. The news is very sad, particularly for those families involved, but offset slightly by the news of a planned order of three new OPVs for the Royal Navy, ostensibly to replace the current River class vessels. The news has been seen as highly damaging to the UK shipbuilding industry, and resulted in headlines claiming the end of 500 years shipbuilding as we know it in Portsmouth (in fact utter nonsense as Portsmouth has gone many decades without building warships other than HMS CLYDE - it had only recently regained construction of blocks for the Type 45 project) and leading to unpleasant suggestions about it being a sop to the Scots ahead of the referendum. In reality this day was always going to come, and has been realistically expected for many years. Despite the regular outbreaks of cla...

The media led on reports today about the Public Accounts Comittee report into the decision to switch CVF from STOVL to CTOL and back to STOVL again. The report received headlines suggesting that JSF posed huge risk and that millions had been wasted through various blunders. As ever though, the situation is more complex than perhaps suggested. The full report can be read HERE The first thing that struck the author on reading it was that it highlighted the challenges posed in bringing any large piece of equipment into service. There was a lot of comments about the risk posed to the UK by not having the so-called ‘Crowsnest’ AEW capability in service until 2022 which left the platform at risk. It is very easy to focus on the idea that a carrier is late, and that is a relatively simple piece of kit, so why should it take so long to bring into service? In reality the introduction into service of CVF is a watershed moment for the Royal Navy – it will represent a step change in capabi...

  The Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer, HMS DARING, is currently entering waters not sailed in by the RN for many years. On a global deployment, she has recently visited Pearl Harbour, and is currently engaged on a high profile tour of the Asia Pacific region. This deployment marks the first time in many years that an RN vessel has visited Pearl Harbour, and the first in about 4-5 years that a major platform will have deployed into the Asia Pacific region. It’s a good news story in many ways – for the RN, a chance to deploy one of their premier assets into a rarely visited region represents a good opportunity to work with old friends and new allies, and demonstrate the exceptionally capable Type 45 to a variety of nations. In particular, it sends a useful reminder to the US that even with the Pacific reorientation, the RN is still capable of deploying to the region and providing a meaningful presence. It is also perhaps a sign of the times that she has deployed without a su...

In the last week or so there have been two major Defence Reviews announced in France and Australia. Both nations are close partners of the UK and significant powers on the global stage, which means that these results are of direct interest to the UK.   The announcement of the French Defence Review, reported back on the future structure of the French military for the next 10 years. Essentially akin to the UK SDSR, the work was designed to address French budget challenges, and try to create a sustainable force which is affordable in the near future. The Think Defence website has helpfully collected a summary of all the reporting on the event ( HERE ) which are well worth reading.   In many ways the review highlights the challenging position France finds itself in at the start of the 21 st Century. Unlike the UK, the French have never had an ‘East of Suez’ moment, and arguably French policy for many years has been to continue projecting a low level amount of power a...

In the last article, Humphrey looked at the reasons why the RN would probably never operate a US supercarrier. In the closing parts of the article, it focused a bit more broadly on the challenges of sustaining a national shipbuilding capability, and also growing that into an export capability. In this article, which loosely follows on from the previous piece, the author wants to consider the very real challenge of exporting high end warships overseas. Due to time constraints this piece is being spread over a couple of articles, and posted as the authors real world commitments permit. The first question is – what is a high end warship? Twenty people could probably offer twenty answers, but for the purposes of this article, Humphrey is assuming high end means large vessel (eg FFG class or above), fitted with modern weapons systems, aviation facilities and supported by up to date electronics and C2 facilities, and able to operate across the full range of maritime operations, fr...