31/12/2024
Source
In this article we look back at a difficult year for the RN, summarising the key events, achievements and issues for the Naval Service in 2024.
Shifting geopolitical realities
Russia continues to be the most dangerous adversary, and the war in Ukraine has continued unabated. At a terrible cost in casualties, Putin’s forces are making small territorial gains in the Donbas, but Ukraine managed to seize part of the Kursk region in a stunning campaign. Broadly, the war is a bloody stalemate that has substantially damaged Russia’s economy, military strength, and global influence. Ukraine has also suffered huge casualties and its war-weary population and troops are also struggling to hold on, having never received the decisive scale of military aid that NATO could supply.
Putin’s desperation makes for an increasingly dangerous situation and drives an increase in ‘deniable’ attacks on NATO with the sabotage of undersea infrastructure and other terrorist or subversive attacks against nations supporting Ukraine. While most Russian conventional forces are in a worsening state, its submarine and seabed warfare capabilities are the exception and pose a particular threat to NATO.
The much-changed strategic balance in the Middle East seems, for now at least, to be broadly in the UK’s favour with the malign influence of Iran weakened by the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and the near-destruction of its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza, respectively. However, the multinational fight against the Houthis in the Red Sea continues. Their ability to threaten merchant shipping remains and traffic using the Suez Canal route has diminished by more than 50% in 2024, a situation that a much stronger USN and RN would never have tolerated if this had been the case in the early 2000s.
The RN contributed to the Red Sea mission from late 2023 to April 2024 with the fine deployments of HMS Diamond and HMS Richmond. Unfortunately, the lack of fleet depth saw the UK simply abandon the fight. The only available relief, HMS Duncan never entered the Red Sea as planned, instead operations in the Mediterranean were the higher priority in the second half of the year.
Despite their economic problems, there has been no let-up in China’s massive military build-up. Besides launching many other combatants, the PLAN began sea trials of its third aircraft carrier (conventional, EMALS-equipped), and is on track to become a dominant blue-water navy in the early 2030s with at least 435 major vessels. Mirroring the RN but on a larger scale, the USN is struggling with a ‘perfect storm’ of ageing vessels, an inability to deliver effective new warships, infrastructure, and recruitment issues. The AUKUS pact as a buffer against Chinese dominance makes great strategic sense, but despite its ambition, may deliver too little too late. HMS Prince of Wales will visit Australia next year, but the CSG25 deployment will require the best part of the RN’s available fleet as well as support from allies.
Fears realised
In the review of the RN in 2023, we highlighted three areas of growing concern: personnel, declining hull numbers/availability and a lack of pace in the delivery of new capabilities to the frontline. The inability to address these issues resulted in very negative consequences in 2024, perhaps even worse than we might have predicted. While recruitment has improved this year, outflow is still too high. The loss of skilled people is profoundly corrosive and is the single biggest factor contributing to the sharp decline in output.
In May 2024, it was officially confirmed that HMS Westminster and HMS Argyll would be retired, reducing the total number of active frigates to nine. In August (as we predicted) severe structural problems were found in HMS Northumberland and in November, it was announced that she was beyond economical repair, further reducing the frigate fleet to eight.
RN SSN activity was notably low in 2024, with the five Astute-class submarines managing only about 90 days at sea combined in the first half of the year. There were several periods when there were no SSNs at sea at all. The situation improved slightly towards the end of the year and there are signs that 2 out of the 5 will be routinely active in 2025. The reputation of the Submarine Service as a whole took another battering with further stories of sexual abuse and appalling behaviour enabled by a few bad leaders emerging into the media. The First Sea Lord had the courage to make a personal apology to one victim and has vowed to raise standards.
HMS Vanguard finally regenerated back into the fleet but the failure of a Trident missile during a test launch did not make for good headlines. (The issue was actually event-specific relating to telemetry equipment and not a cause for wider concern about Trident’s wider reliability). CASD has been maintained but as the boats are ageing this has only been sustained by conducting very long patrols, up to 6 months in some recent cases. This is a very unhealthy situation, putting undue stress on boats and crews.
The new government also confirmed what had been suspected for some time, that the two LPDs HMS Albion and Bulwark, would be axed, primarily due to the relatively high crew requirement. While some see the LPDs as vulnerable and outdated, the immediate consequence is that RN amphibious capability is drastically reduced, and the Littoral Response Group concept (North and South) is pretty incoherent and hollowed out. It also slightly undermines the MRSS program as it is always harder to argue for replacements for ships that you are already ‘managing without’.
The shocking decline in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary has accelerated this year. For around just £30M per year, RFA pay could be made competitive with commercial equivalents. Rather than find this relatively small sum, incremental pay increases and tinkering with terms of service are all that have been offered. The damage to RN capability is out of all proportion to the money involved. Both Wave-class tankers are going to be disposed of and by the end of 2024, the RFA can find crews for just 5 of its 11 remaining ships.
Harland and Wolff, a key future supplier to the RN endured a very turbulent year. The coherent vision for the company presented by its former CEO, Jon Wood could not be realised. Boris Johnson had made promises of Treasury support to underwrite investment, but the new government refused to provide a £200M loan guarantee. At the end of the year, it was confirmed that Spanish-owned giant Navantia had bought the company, primarily to ensure that it keeps hold of the £1.6Bn contract for the 3 Fleet Solid Support ships. Details of the deal have not been made public and whether this represents good value for the taxpayer in the long run or a sustainable future for the 4 yards remains to be seen.
Unless the RFA can rebuild its workforce in the very near future there could be no crews for the FSS upon which so much money and effort has been invested. Perhaps the main reason RFA Fort Victoria, laid up in Birkenhead, has not been axed is that the RFA will need a sea-going platform to train a future generation of sailors how to perform heavy jackstay transfers (replenishment of solid stores at sea). This is a complex evolution and a perishing skill that needs to be exercised regularly. The number of people left in the RFA (and RN) who have actually performed a heavy jackstay transfer must be rapidly diminishing.
Doing less with less
The RN still achieved some considerable successes this year. In January HMS Diamond shot down 7 drones in a single action and in April she became the first RN warship to shoot down a (medium-range) ballistic missile during combat in the Red Sea. HMS Richmond followed with the first kills for the Sea Ceptor missile, destroying two attack drones. Lessons from these engagements were disseminated quickly and software changes were applied to the Sea Ceptor system fleet-wide within days.
The value of having two carriers was demonstrated in February when HMS Queen Elizabeth was withdrawn from NATO exercise Steadfast Defender at the very last minute as a precaution following corrosion discovered on a shaft coupling. The UK’s maritime contribution to NATO is a high priority and in a remarkable achievement, HMS Prince of Wales was brought to readiness and sailed as the replacement flagship just 8 days later.
HMS Prince of Wales participated in Exercise Strike Warrior in October, the first big step in preparing to take over as the fleet flagship and lead the CSG25 deployment. The duration and scale of this exercise was relatively modest and a total of eight 809 NAS F-35s joined for the exercise, still far short of the 24 jets (2 squadrons) expected to participate in at least part of the CSG25. The Lightning Force continues to be hampered by a lack of spares, trained aircrew and engineers, together with an inability to focus purely on naval aviation due to other taskings.
The Littoral Response Group (South) finally conducted its maiden deployment in 2024. RFA Argus and RFA Lyme Bay, together with Royal Marines of 40 Cdo and three Merlin Mk4 aircraft, sailed in October 2023 but ships remained in the Mediterranean for several months before heading East of Suez. They underwent maintenance in an Indian Shipyard and then went to Singapore and Australia. Argus returned home in August but RFA Lyme Bay visited ports in West Africa, finally arriving in Gibraltar in December having sailed 40,458 nautical miles during an epic 414-day deployment. The group demonstrated a useful capability and conducted valuable training and defence diplomacy work but lacking escorts, would have had to integrate into an allied formation in the event of a real conflict.
Other positives for the RN during the year were the continuing achievements of the five Batch II OPVs deployed around the globe delivering a soft power impact for the UK disproportionate to their running cost. On the procurement front, there was positive progress with the Dragonfire LDEW which will be operationalised. The Peregrine RWUAS finally went to sea on HMS Lancaster and the much-delayed Sea Venom light anti-ship missile was successfully test-fired from a Wildcat helicopter. The Type 26 frigate programme is now in full swing with HMS Glasgow expected to begin initial sea trials in 2026. The third Type 31 frigate has been laid down, although neither the RN or Babcock will clarify whether first-of-class, HMS Venturer is now behind schedule or not.
The bald statistics are not encouraging, in 2024 no new vessels were ordered or commissioned while 9 vessels went out of service. The RN and RFA combined now comprise a total of about 54 ships and submarines (P2000 boats should not be counted in the RN ORBAT). Depending on how you categorise a fleet, the UK now has a smaller navy than France. Since 1990, the number of attack submarines has declined by 76% and surface escorts numbers are down by 69%. More encouragingly the RN has 13 frigates, 2 SSNs, 4 SSBNs and 3 solid support ships either under construction or funded and should be in better shape in 5-10 years time.
Outlook
As the 2025 defence review looms, the context does not encourage optimism. Public finances are in a terrible state and government economic policies are unlikely to encourage the growth that is needed to lift the UK out of debt and decline. The real increases in defence spending remain ‘an aspiration’ only and there is no real political or public will to cut other departments’ funding in favour of properly protecting the nation. With President Trump back in the White House demanding Europeans pay their share on defence or US support for Ukraine and NATO could be withdrawn, there could be some very difficult times ahead.
The defence budget is already locked into several large commitments, leaving very little room for manoeuvre. The RN’s Dreadnought submarine programme, Tempest/GCAP for the RAF and the Army’s £11 billion vehicle programme will take the lion’s share of the procurement funds.
The RN must ensure that the existing Type 26 and 31 programmes are delivered while it has to argue for several other large capital projects that need to be funded and begun promptly. These include FADS/Type 83 destroyer, SSN-AUKUS and MRSS. Additionally, the RN needs to invest more in upgrading the carriers to operate uncrewed aircraft and acquire a diverse range of UAS and RWUAS. The FCASW missile programme needs to deliver new weapons as soon as possible, and a large stock needs to be purchased. Block 2 of the MHC programme is also not fully funded, while many MCMVs have already been withdrawn. Further investment is needed in infrastructure, spares and through-life support for future platforms.
It is difficult to believe all this can be managed from the existing budget by a procurement system that is short of people and in many cases, is neither cost-efficient or able to deliver at the pace required. There are strong rumours that the team conducting the SDR, led by Lord Robertson, have submitted their recommendations but were told by Ministers to go away and re-write it because it suggested expenditure above 3% of GDP was needed for a credible defence policy.