Slashdot Mirror
Royal Navy Giving Up Anti-Ship Missiles, Will Rely On Cannons For Naval Combat (telegraph.co.uk)
cold fjord writes: It will soon be a bit more difficult for Britain's Royal Navy to rule the waves as it gives up anti-ship missiles as a result of budget cuts. That will force the Royal Navy to go "old school" and rely upon naval gunfire for ship-to-ship combat. Cannon fire as the primary means of ship-to-ship combat has been largely obsolete since the 1950s following the invention of guided missiles in World War 2. Prior to that, cannon fire had been the primary means of naval combat for hundreds of years. Although the Royal Navy ranged up to 16" guns on battleships, the largest gun currently in active service is a 4.5" gun. That will leave the Royal Navy unable to engage targets beyond approximately 17 miles / 27 km, whereas Harpoon missiles provide an 80 mile / 130 m range. The loss of anti-ship missile capability will begin in 2018 and may last for 10 years for warships, and 2 years for helicopters. The Sun quotes a naval insider who said: "It's like Nelson saying, 'don't worry, I don't need canons, we've got muskets.'" The loss of missile capability heaps more misfortune upon a naval force that recently has seen its available frontline combat force drop to an unprecedented 24 warships.
Considering the size of Great Britain compared to Russia, the Royal Navy is still far ahead in capabilities. For instance, the Royal Navy does not have to have a tug boat go along with their aircraft carrier because it breaks down so often.
Then again, the Royal Navy has more than one aircraft carrier. Unlike Russia.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"to protect their seas"..
Which is what, exactly? Seriously? The party they have to do that against on their own is just Argentine.
They don't have seas to protect anymore, All of the colonies have their own navys.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
y thought on it is that if the nation went to war in which naval battles were a possibility (or actually happening), the budget would be instantaneously available to them to do whatever necessary to protect their seas. I'm sure they also have a rather large stockpile they could draw on in the meantime as well
Where is this stockpile going to come from if you don't develop, test, build and train with it in advance?
And how is the budget going to help when you've got a lead time in years to get something through the pipeline? I know PHBs are fond of the idea they can have 9 women make a baby in a month by throwing money at her, but that's just not how it works.
When is the last time the British Navy fired an anti-ship missile from a ship?
Ideally, you have a military, not to fight your enemies, but to deter them.
Almost 40 years? Seriously.
Tomahawks are used by the Royal Navy as anti-ship missiles. They are also used against land targets. They were last fired in action by the Royal Navy against Libyan targets in 2011.
The US pays for wars all over the place which have been very expensive. 7-9 Trillion in the Middle East with nothing in return except destabilized countries with a populace that hates and is more aggressive to the US and its allies. Stop giving arms to rebels who turn those weapons on you, close bases that don't do us any good and bring troops to bases that do, and if we are defending a country we should receive compensation instead of paying a country to have a base. Further, there can be cuts to BS departments of money grubbing and lobbying, but that would be a secondary issue to tackle.
The US Defense budget is massive, but we sure don't spend it on troops and weapons. Way too much overhead and far too many pet projects.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Now picture this scenario in a cramped space like the Persian Gulf where hundreds of ships and their gigantic overlapping AOU's make targeting anything a downright pita.
Some years ago, I was sitting in on an exercise a group of TAO students were running on the ENWGS (Enhanced Navy War Gaming System); each side had a small collection of patrol craft and/or frigates, and they were in an area that had a number of merchies sailing around. The blue side had sent up a helicopter to search, the orange group had sent a Petya forward. Both sides discovered the other at about the same time, and there was a brief flurry of anti-ship missile launches. When the smoke had cleared, the sole casualty from both sides was the Petya, which was an 'own goal' from a missile fired down its bearing that activated its seeker head a couple miles too soon... but the missile exchange cleared out 3/4 of the merchant ships that had been in the area.
"We will have this gap of several years without missiles. Well, that's fine if you don't have to fight anybody in the meantime."
Well (speaking as a British Citizen) that's fine by me. Britain doesn't 'have' to fight any wars at the moment. We enter existing conflcts, or initiate conflicts without international mandates based on provably false intelligence.
And of course the UK navy has other ways to destroy ships. Ship-launched TASM (Tomahawk Anti Ship Missiles), ship-launched Spearfish torpedos, helicopter launched Sting Ray torpedos and so on. The last large military vessel to be sunk by our navy was engaged by a nuclear submarine which launched a torpedo (General Belgrano sunk by HMS Conqueror in 1982).