For the_marquis and others

[wellinghall]

Royal Navy strength, including ships on standby, being refitted etc

1978

1 aircraft carrier
2 ASW carriers - commando ships
31 submarines
2 assualt ships
2 cruisers
14 destroyers
50 frigates

102 large ships in total

80 small ships

70 admirals

2007

3 aircraft carriers
3 amphibious assault ships
13 submarines
8 destroyers
17 frigates

44 large ships in total

44 small ships

48 admirals

Comments

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

Gosh, that's sobering. navyboy82 was talking about the general sense of "managing decline" which seems to be part of the job description just the other day. :(

3 aircraft carriers
3 amphibious assault ships
13 submarines
8 destroyers
17 frigates <-- these ones are the best (at the moment. navyboy82 has requested a Minehunter as his first priority for his next job, at which point they would become the best...)

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Frigates and destroyers are "large" vessels now? Good Lord.

I was reading an interesting article recently which questioned the need for most of the ships in the Navy. I think the author's main argument was:

The role of the Navy is to project force across the globe, and to protect shipping.

You project force these days by aircraft and by delivering ground troops. What with the number of allies we have, you can use ground-based aircraft pretty much anywhere, but it might be useful to have rapidly-deployable ones like carriers. We also want to be able to deliver ground troops and supplies, for which we need amphibious ships and auxiliaries.

So offensively we want carriers and troopships. And land-based aircraft, but that's RAF not Navy.

The threats to shipping are aircraft and submarines. Surface combat is pretty much non-existent these days, and can be countered by aircraft and submarines anyway (they being the big threats to shipping).

The best way to detect and destroy aircraft is to use other aircraft. Missiles are no good, as by the time missiles from the ships get to the aircraft it's own missiles are hitting your ships.

The best ways to detect and destroy submarines are to use submarines and aircraft. Surface ships are just targets for the subs.

So defensively we want carriers and submarines. And land-based aircraft, but that's RAF not Navy.

Oh, and mines, which require minsweepers.

So the Navy needs carriers, troopships, submarines, and small craft and auxiliaries.

The frigate and the destroyer are designed to counter aircraft and subs, but in fact are second-best ways of doing it. So they don't really have a role in the modern Navy.

Except: they're a lot cheaper than carriers, and more visible than subs. So if you want to look impressive, they're quite handy.

So the only logical reason to have frigates and destroyers is to make the Navy look more imposing. Of course, it's be even better if you could count them as "large vessels" for that purpose... ;-)

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

I'm just surprised that the number of admirals has gone down rather than up. Mind you, Parkinson (of Parkinson's law) was making rude comments about this trend - back in the 1970s....

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I never knew there were so many admirals. I always thought that was like King of the Navy and there would be like 3 of them.

Now I want to organise an Admirals football match, and have them all playing in giant three-cornered hats.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

One Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom
Five Admirals of the Fleet
Nine Admirals
Seven Vice-Admirals
Twenty-six Rear-Admirals

[bunn.livejournal.com]

And a Paaaaartridge in a peaaaaaaar treeeeeeee.....

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

And how many did there use to be, in say, 1978?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

1 Lord High Admiral
8 Admirals of the Fleet
5 Admirals
13 Vice-Admirals
43 Rear-Admirals

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

It's difficult to make a direct comparison using just the numbers of each type of vessel, since one class of frigate might be very much more powerful than another.

For example, the 1978 frigates would mostly have been Leander class, plus the first of the new Type 21s. The Leanders were obsolete even then, and the Falklands War demonstrated the design flaws of the Type 21. The 2008 frigates are all (I think) Type 22s (which proved themselves in the Falklands) and Type 23s (among the most advanced multi-role surface craft in the world).

Similarly, most of the 1978 subs (excluding the Polaris ICBM boats) were obsolete diesel-powered models - not a patch on the nuclear-powered hunter-killers of today. I think the first of these would have been entering service in the 1970s, but it certainly wouldn't have been possible for a single diesel-powered submarine to confine the entire Argentinean fleet to port, as happened with a nuclear sub in the Falklands War.

Of course on the other hand 1978's Ark Royal was a 'proper' aircraft carrier capable of carrying more than a handful of V/STOL aircraft. It even carried Buccaneers (very cool fighter-bombers - best British built combat aircraft of the last fifty years), whereas Illustrious, 2008's Ark Royal and the soon-to-be-flogged Invincible are all really too small to support a major fleet action. In the Falklands, Invincible and Hermes (the last of the two ASW carriers mentioned) had to fly each of their Harriers way past normal combat operation limits. Even then, they had to be supported by other spare (RAF) Harriers carried in reserve on a container ship.



One thing - I can't for the life of me think what the two cruisers were in 1978. A couple of long-mothballed relics? Were they counting HMS Belfast, moored up on the Thames in London? Care to enlighten me?