I am grateful to the former Chief of Defence Materiel, Sir Bernard Gray for his published response in the Daily Telegraph last week (‘Whitehall did not cripple Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers’) and his setting the record straight to what I and many others regard as being a quite disgraceful article (‘How MOD Mandarins crippled Britain’s aircraft carriers’) published in the same newspaper on July 17th by Lewis Page.
Page, a former Royal Navy Lieutenant and EOD diver and who during his eleven years of service was, I am told, not very popular and who, I might add, one of the defence forums responding to an earlier article he had written questioning the value of Royal Navy frigates concluded that ‘you could pick so many holes in it you could call it a piece of cheese’, is for some reason that I fail to understand, referred to by some as an authority on military matters and even refers to himself as a defence expert. So be it!
In his response Bernard Gary who I know well set out how in terms of history the two now in-service Royal Navy aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales emerged from what many of us regard as having been an excellent Defence Review in 1998 conducted by the then Secretary of State for Defence and later Head of Nato, the now Lord Robertson of Port Ellen came to be.
I take no issue with anything that Bernard Gray has said in his excellent response and rebuttal of this appalling Daily Telegraph article.
In respect of detail I would add the following:
Back in 1997/8, following a request by Lord Robertson to the then Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Johns and First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jock Slater to agree what was needed to rebuild what is now called ‘carrier strike capability’, whether one or two carriers would be required, of what size and for what purpose, ahead of the final SDR publication this is what my understanding is of what occurred:
Along with creation of Joint Force Harrier, the two service chiefs concluded that two vessels with an upper weight limit of 40,000 tons and this to be based on the US Marine Corp carrier ‘Wasp’. The basis for this was that, assuming that the UK would in the forthcoming 1998 SDR confirm an intention to remain in the power projection business and retain appropriate levels of intervention capability, the role of the two carriers should be to provide just that – intervention capability and power projection. There was however no mention of what later came to be termed as the additional need for ‘deep strike’ capability and which that led to the near doubling of size of the two carriers when they were eventually built.
In later evidence given to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee and as reported in Hansard, Admiral Sir Jock Slater said Admiral Sir Jock Slater said “I believe that two 30,000 tonnes to 40,000 tonnes carriers is the right answer set against the assumptions we made about what their tasks will be” adding that “the surface fleet requirement would be 32 ships”. How times change – today the Royal Navy has just 18 frigates and destroyers!
Sadly, far from lasting for eleven years as Lord Robertson once claimed, sad to say that the outcomes of SDR had unravelled considerably by the time that Gordon Brown handed No 10 over to David Cameron in 2010. Why? Firstly because Gordon Brown had refused to fully fund the forward equipment programme and which as we now know from hindsight, resulted in so many problems being stored up for the future and secondly, the unexpected growth, size and cost of the carriers that in 2008/9 had arguably been signed off by Gordon Brown for reasons that some might suggest were not based on military reality.
As to the incorporation of ‘deep strike’ capability pushed forward by one of Jock Slaters hapless successors and that doubled the size of the carriers and ensured that for many years that followed the Royal Navy and the rest of defence would be forced to struggle to acquire capability that it required, less said the better.
Make no mistake, I am absolutely behind the creation of Carrier Strike capability and there can be little doubt that, despite the UK having indicated that it would acquire 138 Joint Strike Fighter F-35 ‘B’ STOVL (Short Take Off Vertical Landing) aircraft and, twenty years later, having ordered only 48 aircraft so far (In evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee in April this year in his former role as Deputy Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir Richard Knighton who is now Deputy Commander Capability said that the UK now intended to acquire a further 26 F35B’s bringing the total up to 74 (one aircraft has been subsequently lost and is apparently to be replaced).
My understanding is that the UK currently has 25 F-35 aircraft in service and that so far, there are 24 qualified F-35 ‘B’ pilots. As mentioned in my earlier piece this week, retention of pilots remains a continuing issue but that is a story I will continue in due course.
The other issue afforded much time by Bernard Gray in response to the awful Page article was on the decision to ‘retrofit’ what is known as ‘Electromagnet Launch’ or EMALS which were under development in the US and which, if fitted to one carrier (HMS Prince of Wales) would allow a variety of fixed wing fighter aircraft to land and take-off from the carrier and that could possibly lead to the first carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth whose development at that time (2011) had gone too far to consider retrofitting of an EMALS system, potentially being sold.
SDSR 2010 confirmed that HMS Prince of Wales would be fitted with an EMALS system and as Bernard Gray rightly points out, costing for this was estimated at between £750m and £1bn. However, during the course of 2011 cost estimates for the potential change in design and that would require wholesale changes to the ship, had risen close to £2bn.
By late 2011 the then Secretary of State for Defence Dr. Liam Fox was looking to reverse the decision to put an EMALS system on HMS Prince of Wales. Liam Fox who had made the original call for an EMALS system to be fitted, together with the Navy Board and others were united on reversing the 2010 decision. Despite this, the MOD, Cabinet Office, No 10 and even the Major Projects Authority were not happy about switching back – government because of embarrassment of a U-turn and others perhaps because this meant that both carriers would need to be retained v and were seemingly united on this.
However, as Bernard Gray points out, HM Treasury and No 10 eventually agreed. I should perhaps add here that by request, I had myself played a not insignificant role in assisting the path of this potential reversal of plan but as Bernard Gray also points out, the decision to change was very widely discussed by the then Chief of Defence Staff, Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, Service Chiefs, Defence Minister and others.
The bottom line is that had EMALS been fitted it probably wouldn’t have worked. Indeed, as Bernard Gray points out, the EMALS system intended to be fitted to US Navy and Marine ships will not be ready until 2025 at the earlies. Just imagine what would be if we had failed to reverse our decision to fit EMALS on HMS Prince of Wales and how potentially, this ship would not have sailed let alone been commissioned into the Royal Navy as it now has.
Thankfully we made the right decision and there can be no doubt of the success not only in respect of engineering and capability established and of maintaining sovereign defence manufacturing capability in the UK (lead by BAE Systems, the two ships were built and assembled at Babcock International’s Rosyth Dockyard on the Firth of Forth together with BAE Systems Govan Yard and other UK shipyards by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance Group, a partnership that included Babcock International, Thales and the Ministry of Defence.
In short, the two Royal Navy aircraft carriers in service today have already achieved huge success working with our US and other allies. Yes, it is true that as far as air power capability on the carriers is concerned, we are short but I would add here that it was always the intention that US Marine Corp F-35B aircraft would use and be based on our carriers. The point though is that as far as carrier strike capability is concerned, we are moving in the right direction even if the rest of defence has born a rather too high cost.
Large and arguably too large they may be but they are with us and doing what the UK should be doing – projecting power, providing air intervention capability and working with our allied partners at a time when as geo-political tensions increase, there is so much uncertainty in future stability.
Again, my thanks to Bernard Gray for his excellent response to Lewis Page’s Daily Telegraph published article and to what Gray suggested, owed more to “John Buchan and the ‘39 Steps’ than to Jason Bourne and James Bond.
CHW (London- 10th August 2022)
Howard Wheeldon FRAeS
Wheeldon Strategic Advisory Ltd,
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