In January 1974 a group of warships, sailing under the flag of Flag Officer Second Flotilla, departed on a nine month deployment to Australia and the Far East. Task Group 317.1, as it was known, comprised the flagship FIFE, escorted by the frigates ARGONAUT, ARAIDNE, DANAE, SCYLLA and LONDONDERRY, supported by the RFAs TIDESPRING and TARBATNESS.
On 17 September 1974 the helicopter cruiser BLAKE sailed from Portsmouth accompanied by the frigates LOWESTOFT and FALMOUTH and the RFAs STROMNESS and OLNA. Later that day the group rendezvoused with the submarine WARSPITE, three more frigates, ACHILLES, DIOMEDE and LEANDER, and the RFA GREEN ROVER. Once assembled, Task Group 317.2, under the flag of Flag Officer First Flotilla, set course for Gibraltar at the start of a nine month deployment to the Far East.
At the time, this new policy of group deployments was seen as having many benefits over the traditional solo deployment or patrol. The ships could operate over an extended p
By Chris Cope: Political Correspondent - Warship World
May I respond to the debate: How will the RN deploy a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) from its very limited resources?
Ideally, a CSG should comprise a carrier with an SSN, two destroyers, two frigates, a fleet tanker and a fleet solid support (FSS) ship. (Apologies for the USN image accompanying this article - but no RN image available)
On the principle of quarts/pint pots, a CSG with two destroyers and two frigates is frankly unachievable with only 19 in service and major questions arising out of the availability of the Type 45s. Indeed, we recently learnt that Dauntless will remain alongside at Portsmouth for another year, before she goes into refit. Lancaster, also alongside at Portsmouth, will not commence her refit until next summer.
So, realistically,
This article was originally posted on the ‘Save The Royal Navy’ Website for more details of their work see:
http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org
There are many serious concerns about the state of the Royal Navy today. Lost in a wave of negative and half-accurate media stories is the truth that even now, the RN is still delivering for the UK. The RN is under-funded and under-sized, especially when judged by the standards of its illustrious past and today’s growing threats. Judged by the standards of most of European and many world navies, it is still a potent force and is consistently meeting the specific operational tasks it is given by government.
DEBATE: It is great news that the Royal Navy is poised to again deploy fixed wing aircraft from a modern and capable aircraft carrier. However, how will the arrival of the new carriers affect current and future naval operations? A Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is the modern successor to the Carrier Battle Group (CVBG) of the post WWII era. Generally one would expect a carrier to have its own assigned air defence destroyers, ASW frigates (note the plurals) and possibly an SSN in ‘deep field’ along with logistic support. The Royal Navy will, next year, take acceptance of HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH. How will the RN deploy a CSG from its very limited resources and what impact will such a deployment have on the rest of the Royal Navy and its tasks? Today it is severely stretched to meet current tasking - RFAs and OPVs have already taken on roles previously carried out by frigates and destroyers. 19 destroyers and frigates we know, tran
HERITAGE LOTTERY FUND CONDEMNS HMS PRESIDENT 1918 TO THE SCRAP YARD
HMS President Preservation Trust, the charity that owns HMS President 1918 (“The President”), London's last remaining World War One ship, and one of only three left has been refused Lottery funding of £330,000 to secure its future.
During WW1 The President was a secret German U Boat Submarine hunter (a 'Q ship') shadowing the Atlantic convoys with concealed guns. In WW2 She was used to protect St Paul's Cathedral from the Luftwaffe and as a base for the French Resistance.
The President had to be moved from its 92 year mooring at London's Victoria Embankment in February 2016 to storage at Chatham Docks in Kent awaiting refurbishment of its hull and a new mooring in Central London due to the major Thames Tideway Tunnel sewer Project. The City of London Corporation have in principle given their support to a new mooring for the President adjacent to London Bridge on th
This article was originally posted on the ‘Save The Royal Navy’ Website for more details of their work see:
http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org
The tradition of Navy Days dates back to the 1920s when the Royal Dockyards were open to the public for “Navy Week”. Under various names and formats these events were held every year (except during WWII) until the Royal Navy finally gave up on them with the Meet your Navy event at Portsmouth in 2010.
Memorable occasions: Besides a wide variety of ships open to visitors, Navy Days in the 1970s until the 2000s typically included flying displays, river and basin displays, parachute jumps, the Royal Marine band, static displays and stalls and much more. There was something for all the family. It is difficult to see any downside to staging these events. The public, particularly in the naval towns
An already stretched and under resourced Royal Navy has been asked to deploy vessels from its ever shrinking Fleet to patrol the UK maritime border.
The Home Affairs select committee has proposed that the Royal Navy be deployed in the English Channel to protect the UK against migrant people-smugglers and the heightened terror threat. Extra patrols around the border are needed because the UK’s fleet of Border Protection cutters is depleted and not sufficient to protect against the threat to the country from the refugee crisis.
It emerged that just three Border Force cutter vessels were being used to patrol the UK's 7,000 miles of coastal borders. The English Channel has in recent months become the key front in the battle to protect Britain’s borders. Last week a court heard how smugglers were making up to £100,000 per journey ferrying boat loads of desperate migrants into tiny ports around UK’s porous coastline.
Demonstrating a misunderstanding of the current ca
This article was originally published by Save The Royal Navy and we thank them for allowing us to reproduce it here.
Like the naval service, manpower shortages, tight budgets and industrial issues, together with ever-increasing demand for its services are creating a perfect storm of pressure on the RFA.
Depending on your point of view, the RFA is either being over-worked and its vessels utilised in ways beyond what is prudent, or it is demonstrating incredible flexibility and the best of British improvisation. The RFA has been increasingly taking on ‘traditional’ warship roles over the last 20 years but 2016 has witnessed this trend taken to extremes.
RFA Fort Victoria has mostly spent the last few years providing support to RN and coalition vessels in the Gulf and Indian Ocean. After refit in the UK during 2014 she returned to Gulf duty. The Prime Minister often likes to be s
NavyBooks celebrates website re-launch with charitable pledge
Our new-look NavyBooks.com website, which hosts hundreds of naval titles and thousands of books, ranging from amateur-penned memoirs to established thought-leaders in naval history, warships and maritime warfare, is to donate 1% of all revenue to The Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity (RNRMC) as its 2016 Charity of the Year.
New NavyBooks owner and Managing Director, Ian Whitehouse, is a former submariner who served with the Second Submarine Squadron in Plymouth and now lives in North Cornwall.
He says that the RNRMC was an obvious candidate to support because of his personal links to the Royal Navy. NavyBooks’ main customers typically also have close links to, and support for, the Royal Navy. “With the launch of the new website, and understanding our customers’ passion for the subject, we thought it was a good time to partner with The Royal Navy and Royal
This article is based on one previously published by Commander Rob Forsyth, Royal Navy in the February 2016 issue of The Naval Review. Commander Forsyth argues that, far from being 'independent and keeping us safe' as claimed, the cost of Trident and its replacement is making UK less safe by crippling our military capability.
TRIDENT - IS IT KEEPING US SAFE?
The 2015 election failed to stimulate any debate on defence at all, never mind the nuclear deterrent (stand fast the SNP); the general public is blindly and trustingly accepting the Government's policy without access to the full facts. As Executive Officer of a Polaris submarine in the 1970's I concurred with the then government policy of Mutually Assured Destruction - because I was confident that it would only ever be fired as a second-strike retaliation should the USSR fire at us first. The balance of opinion amongst 'The Trade' – although not held
