Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/24768307 (281809ZJUN26) Notable: Foreshadowed, the UK’s entire fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines stuck in port due to maintenance bottlenecks
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>>56064
Notice the date, Jan 2024
UK #51
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come …
By Francis Tusa Jan. 09, 2024 (Source: Defence Analysis; posted Jan. 09, 2024)
LONDON — Defence Analysis will hold its mitts up straightaway: what we outline here is very much what might be called, “the right of arc”, the extreme position, the less/least likely possibility. But then, if what Defence Analysis is about to outline is that unlikely, we wouldn’t be writing this. But, yes other futures are available ….
It is 2026, maybe 2027, and what do UK defence capabilities look like? Bluntly, they look appalling, a complete whisp of what they once were. As the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showed Scrooge of what awaited him, so Defence Analysis will do the same ….
Knackered Navy
The crisis in availability of pretty much every platform has accelerated, as was obvious it would in 2023. Because fleet management, maintenance, overhaul, and the underlying infrastructure had been so badly managed from the 2000s onwards, the Royal Navy is, in effect and not by choice, taking a series of capability holidays.
The Type 23 flotilla has fallen off a cliff. The early retirements that started in 2022 and into 2023 (HMSs Monmouth and Montrose) has accelerated. The drive to pretend that HMS Westminster was in any shape to be upgraded has been abandoned - the costs have leaked, and the contractor(s) will not sign up for unlimited liability if they take the work. But HMS Somerset has proved to have equalled HMS Westminster: sure, she was in refit for several years, but, in effect, with all of the work and money spent, it was only ever painting over some pretty serious cracks, and there are persistent engineering problems which cannot be overcome without a tidal wave of cash.
HMS Lancaster started the inevitable slide towards oblivion during her time as the Forward Deployed Escort in the Gulf, and returned home with rust everywhere, looking in as bad shape as she actually was. So, much like HMS Montrose, she is quietly tied up, the RN pretends she is operational, but after six months, there is no hiding the truth. And both HMS Northumberland and Kent, both of which have been “well used” (aka “thrashed”) are faced with either unscheduled - and expensive – refits, or retirement.
The shortage of funds means it is the latter.
The Type 23 fleet by 2027 is down to six hulls - and RN fleet managers fear it will be down to five, maybe even four, pretty soon – and the official out of service date of the last Type 23 is 2035 ….
But, but… the new frigates classes! HMS Glasgow is on trials, sure, as is HMS Venturer, HMSs Cardiff and Active are not far behind. But the build tempo was set at a remarkably slow rate in the late 2010s, and attempts to speed things up always failed on the altar of cost: the RN didn’t have the money to retain the older escorts, while speeding up deliveries of the new ships. And there were not the crews to man both the old and the new ships.
One Type 45 destroyer is still tied up due to a lack of crew, but the age of the class - the oldest ship will be shy of 25-years by then – means that one ship, which had seen maintenance and obsolescence management shaved in the 2010s and 2020s, is looking like a Type 23: too expensive to keep in service.
Despite claiming that the extra tied up Type 45 is “at high readiness, and can be used operationally at short notice”, she is now known in Portsmouth as HMS Doomed.
The Type 45 fleet is down to four operational useable ships - and there are concerns that another ship might also have to be declared unusable.
Crewing issues, both of ships and aircraft, means that keeping two aircraft carriers in anything like constant service has proved to be a bridge too far. Much as happened with the LPDs in the 2010s, one carrier is put into extended readiness, that is tied up alongside with no crew, with a general lack of maintenance.
The plan to retain the Hunt-class MCMVs failed as the RN could not budget to buy new second-hand tender vessels to host unmanned underwater vessels, as well as extending the life of the in-service MCMVs. The UK, the RN, which used to have a fleet of 30 MCMVs, the most capable mine warfare fleet in the entire world, is down to five Hunt-class ships - and they are showing their age – plus two UUV tender vessels – not enough to maintain the Gulf deployment, as well as the growing task for underwater infrastructure protection.
The UK MoD has been trying to “burden share” with Norway, the Netherlands, France, and even Belgium in the North Sea and Western Approaches.
The state where both HMS Albion and Bulwark were tied up, and the deep maintenance period for the latter over-ran, becomes not an anomaly, but the norm. And as a saving, one of the ships isn’t just kept at “extended readiness”, but at “very extended readiness”. As a result, HMS Albion just begins the process of deterioration and rotting.
The decline of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, that started with discontent with pay and conditions in the early-2020s, and actually led to strikes, continued. Now, with a shortfall of over 500 sailors, not only can it not crew both the three Landing Ship (Auxiliary) as well as the Replenishment Ship, it can’t find the crew for three operational Tide-class tankers, so the RN has only two fleet tankers.
On top of all this, as Defence Analysis revealed last month, the submarine fleet is not facing a cliff edge - it’s gone over it. The cost of upgrading a neglected and knackered HMS Victorious means that she is retired early – although this is not admitted for two years until a document leaks. And the two years when HMS Vanguard was being refuelled, and HMS Victorious was tied up awaiting dock space saw HMSs Vigilant and Vengeance being completely thrashed – and HMS Vigilant’s reactor has time expired.
More:
https://www.defense-aerospace.com/how-the-british-military-is-imploding-in-slow-motion/