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The doughty seamen of Her Majesty’s Navy endure grueling training and long deployments to keep British power securely afloat.
Come on board HMS Boxer in her home port of Portsmouth if you’d like to know something about the ship, the men who sail in her, and the Royal Navy.
The Boxer is a Type-22 frigate, a design that might bring to mind a small, lightly armed escort that rides roughly in heavy weather. But the designation “frigate” suits the Type-22 only in terms of her employment. She is a large (476 feet and 4,800 tons), highly sophisticated (with radar microprocessors equal in capacity to Britain’s largest civilian computer), and heavily armed warship (Exocet and Sea Wolf missiles and ASW torpedoes, up to two Lynx antisubmarine warfare helicopters, an outstanding towed array sonar, and two 40-mm. Bofors guns). The first of a stretched version of the original Type-22 design, the Boxer has a 50- foot midships section that accommodates the U. S. Outboard intelligence collection system.
The Boxer helps the Royal Navy to fulfill its primary NATO role of antisubmarine warfare. She can also meet surface, subsurface, and air threats both to herself and the ships she screens, but her first job is to kill submarines.
The Boxer displaces nearly half again the tonnage of the Royal Navy’s previous standard frigate, the Leander class. She is much longer ranged than the Leanders, carries about 50% more fuel than early Type-22s, and is an excellent seafarer in heavy weather.
Her main propulsion is gas turbine, and she can achieve flank speed from a dead stop in less than three minutes.
For a naval vessel, the Boxer is a comfortable ship with ample living space—thoughtfully planned and fitted with air conditioning and pleasant mess
A Type-22 sister of the Boxer, the Royal Navy’s most advanced frigate design, gets under way (pages 50-51 and above). Captain Nixon-Eckersall and his combat team practice the Boxer’s primary antisubmarine mission (right).
decks and petty officer messes. Wide, through-deck passageways, devoid of “knee-knockers” on two decks, make getting around the ship easier without impairing reserve buoyancy or watertight integrity.
One of a newer Type-23 frigate is now off the British building ways, but save for this one ship, the 22s are the latest and best frigate design in commission in the Royal Navy, and Britain would dearly loved to have had the 14 planned ships of the class facing Argentina during the Falklands Campaign, instead of the two available.
When I visited, the ship’s commanding officer was Captain Charles Nixon-Eckersall, a 34-year veteran who entered the Royal Navy when he was 16. Primarily a submariner—he has commanded one nuclear and one diesel boat as well as one other frigate—he has trained in submarine warfare for two decades, and has served in some 20 ships. Submarine skippers have often commanded Royal Navy frigates, but interestingly, no naval aviator or submariner has commanded one of Britain’s three antisubmarine aircraft carriers.
Unlike the U. S. Navy, the Royal Navy does not have unrestricted line officers; Nixon-Eckersall is a seaman officer, perhaps the closest thing in the Royal Navy to the line principle. His assignment at the time of my visit was to make the Boxer available for developing software for the Computer Aided Combat System.
With 19 officers and 242 men, “we’re terribly short staffed in this ship,” said Nixon-Eckersall. “The problem ... is keeping the bloody thing clean . . . The machinery spaces are all unmanned—they . . . only need a machinery watch of four men, since they’re all numerically controlled and monitored. As far as running the ship,
we don’t need more than we’ve g° ’ , but cleaning it, feeding people, st0 j it, and all those other necessary t*11 - put us in a clinch for manpower.
“As far as I’m concerned all j men are sailors,” he continued, > being a sailor is their primary j00 . ^ their specialist job is second. The J they do are far more demanding JV than those their counterparts did 4 |
years ago ... In a nuclear sub'11® commanded I’ve had chaps work out for six hours on a computerize
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terrin information and fire control sys- 5q ’ keeping track simultaneously of i1arri°ntacts' Those ratings worked far Plot “lan a c'haP manning a manual 9r>al t'e*P'n§ t0 produce a target motion
le heads of the Boxer's four de-
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d(.n 8 lheir entire careers. While not a sPon-rnent head, a naval aviator is re- thensi^le for the Lynx helicopter and t-^'Sht men who maintain it. Nixon- executive officer (called the ,^‘lieutenant” by tradition), al- §h junior in rank to some depart-
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°Pe ents—marine engineering, supply, arcrat'0ns, and weapons engineering— cersarea specialists. Only seaman offi- Sibl Wlt^ sPec*al qualifications are eli- r*. e. h'r command. Other specialists dUriain within their fields of expertise
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ment heads, is militarily second in command.
One of the Boxer’s most senior ratings is Charge Chief Mechanical Electrical Artificer John Phillips, a 23-year veteran of the Royal Navy. Charge Chief Phillips is roughly equivalent in rate to a senior chief petty officer in the U. S. Navy. Artificers’ skills as leaders and diagnostic technicians position them in the top echelons of Royal Navy ratings. Their four-year apprenticeships result in formal academic recognition just short of a degree.
Phillips is a specialist in gas turbine propulsion plants. He supervises 30 men and has direct responsibility for all electrical standards throughout the ship. As the division chief for the ship's senior ratings, he also handles requests
Charge Chief Phillips (top left, at right), a senior-ranking expert in gas turbine propulsion, has had less than four years of shore duty in 19 years. The officers standing watch on the Boxer’s bridge (bottom left) began their careers doing the jobs they will ask of ratings (below).
for leave, training, and other personnel work, as well as serving as quarterdeck officer of the watch when the ship is in port.
Phillips consistently works at least 12 hours a day at sea for about $21,000 a year. Income and purchase taxes are very high in Britain, and there is no navy exchange or commissary system.
Phillips has served in five ships, including duty during the Falklands Campaign on board an earlier variant Type- 22. During 19 years of married life, he has had what the U. S. Navy would regard as shore duty for three-and-a- half years. The Royal Navy keeps its ships at sea for exercises and group deployments approximately 9 months out of 12. Seven-to-nine-month deployments with only a few weeks back in Britain are common for major combatants.
Phillips is approaching a 22-year-service crossroads in his career. He has qualified and applied for warrant officer, and if selected will receive a significant increase in pay and prospects for desirable duty in either one of Britain’s three ASW carriers or the equivalent of a U. S. Navy fleet training group.
Royal Navy warrant officers are not
The dockyard—precursor to today’s naval base—has a
When British seamen established a dockyard at Portsmouth in southern England, Columbus was making his second expedition to the Western Hemisphere, and the American War of Independence was 280 years in the future. Now Her Majesty’s Naval Base Portsmouth is as important today to the defense of Britain as when Henry VII ordered its construction in 1495.
“Pompey,” as generations of Royal Navy sailors have called it, is adjacent to a spacious deep-water harbor adjoining the city of Portsmouth. Portsmouth Harbour opens onto the Solent, a channel between the coast and the nearby Isle
Since Henry VII ordered its construction in 1495, Portsmouth Harbour (above) has evolved into a busy hybrid of high-technology naval facilities and a priceless museum of British seafaring. Britain built Spitbank Fort (inset) one mile outside of the harbor to discourage the French from invading in the late 1800s. Portsmouth is also home to Lord Nelson’s ship Victory (right).
of Wight, beyond which lies the broad expanse of the Engl'5 Channel. Portsmouth Harbour is the third busiest in the United Kingdom, with about 60,000 ship movements in and out per year.
In addition to the naval base, the Royal Navy maintains other operational and training facilities around Portsmouth Harbour and the Solent—a complex as critical to the Roy31 Navy and British defense as San Diego or Norfolk is to u'6 U. S. Navy and the United States.
The base is a fascinating blend of an enormous museum and modem industry serving a high-technology sea service-
Some 36 combat ships, including all three of the Royal Navy’s Invincible-class antisubmarine carriers (HMS -n ble, HMS Illustrious, and HMS Ark Royal), and half the n in the Royal Navy operate from Portsmouth and the surrou ing area. Many of the 27 ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiha0 also sail from here.
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remarkable history spanning the entire life of the Royal
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commissioned, and are, in fact, “fleet chief petty officers,” roughly equivalent to a U. S. Navy master chief petty officer. There is, however, a significant increase in prestige, and certainly enhanced living conditions for warrants in the larger ships.
If Phillips is not promoted to warrant officer, and decides to leave the service, he will take with him a one-time £17,000 gratuity and a monthly pension of about £320. The job market for people with his skills is excellent, especially overseas. “But as long as the job is interesting and challenging, I’ll stay,” he said.
Many of those intending to be career officers today in the Royal Navy have academically qualified for civilian university, and join at 18 or 19 after passing navy entrance examinations. They attend the Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth for two four-m° terms, the last mostly at sea in the Dartmouth training ship, where they spend much of their time doing the jobs they will demand of navy rat- ^ ings—scrubbing decks, maintaining hull, and working in the galley. Th ] then spend another ten months as hj . shipmen at sea in ships across the working in every department.
Midshipmen who pass a rigorous
l5tL^ England’s first drydock, serving from the turn of the •o iciCentUry until 1623, and a shipbuilding yard from 1650 ‘"68.
Jn February 1906, HMS Dreadnought, a battleship type
„ction;
The Royal Navy Museum is here, as well as a host
|au ^ for making all others of her day obsolete, was her t Sc* 'n Portsmouth only five months after builders laid (lUr. eef Portsmouth built eight more battleships before and 'n8 World War I and did refits on some 2,000 vessels, paring wor]<_i War II, the dockyard employed some 23,000 that anc* was a v'ta' marshal ling point for the huge forces Ija? Cr°Ssed the English Channel for the D-Day invasion of pt'Occupied Normandy.
r prtsmouth houses some astonishing nautical museum col- >0a ^er historic buildings and ships. About 400,000 people a /\(j Vls'l to examine, among other things, HMS Victory,
1S( ‘ral Lord Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in and the warship Mary Rose, built in 1510 during the
early reign of Henry VIII (and one of the most remarkable archaeological nautical finds of recent times).
As in the days of sail, the function of the naval base is to support the fleet. But there simply is not as much money in the defense purse as there once was. In 1981, a British government defense review restructured Portsmouth into a fleet maintenance and repair organization (FMRO) under the aegis of Flag Officer, Portsmouth, and ultimately responsible to Commander-in-Chief, Fleet. This radically altered the base’s organization and mission. Where the dockyard once employed 7.000 workers, only 2,800 workers now pass through the base’s venerable Victory and Unicom gates to jobs. The naval base performs only one major frigate refit a year, and a working arrangement very unusual in Britain has evolved between the civilian trade unions and the Ministry of Defence.
Under the old organization, the civilian managers and laborers worked on the ships, while naval personnel acted as agents for the Commander-in-Chief, Fleet. Civilians and navy viewed each other as “them and us,” and the yard sometimes failed to complete its work on time.
Now, 500 Royal Navy personnel work alongside the civilian employees. Many of these sailors are on shore duty “between ships.” The unusual thing in this union-conscious society is that civilians and navy men do the yard’s work interchangeably. They even swap jobs among the various trades—a practice that British trade unions would have regarded as heretical not very long ago.
FMRO has one ship in hand for long-term availability at any one time, and these major overhauls last as long as 18 months. Two-thirds of FMRO’s responsibility is short-term work of 12 weeks or less. Basically, Portsmouth FMRO is the “pit stop,” while the other two Royal Navy shipyards, Devonport and Rosyth, perform most of the major overhauls.
Her Majesty’s Naval Base in Portsmouth is undergoing one other major change. Curiously, this could make it one of the most visited tourist attractions in the United Kingdom.
Through an agreement among the Royal Navy, the Ministry of Defence, several historical trusts, and commercial developers, the newly organized Portsmouth Naval Heritage Project is transforming part of the base into a visitors’ theme park, with the theme being the history of the Royal Navy. Organiz- ’ ers will tie the historical ships, the splendid Royal Navy Museum, and a collection of industrial buildings and residences into a park they hope will attract one to two million visitors a year.
At the same time, Portsmouth Naval Base will continue to operate—secure and unimpaired—tending to the needs of Her Majesty’s ships as it has for hundreds of years.
William M. Powers
Vg; lnat‘on become sublieutenants and trijjrj sPecialized training as seamen, engne engineers, or supply or weapon serv .er officers. Officers can also bfaln the submarine and fleet air arm u "es and in many subspecialties, ratjn°^a| Navy training for officers and engi8s *s extensive and intense. Marine thre6ers> f°r example, complete a CoUr^ear degree course. Some 3,000 Ses are administered by the Royal
Navy at a cost of approximately £160 million annually.
“General list” career officers can expect to become lieutenants at age 22 or 23, and must spend eight years in rank. Promotion to lieutenant commander is automatic; promotion to commander and above is by selection, and selection boards sit every six months. About 50% of Royal Navy commanders attain the rank of captain.
With rare exceptions, selection boards do not tap a man for rear admiral until he has eight-and-a-half years seniority as captain. A captain cannot serve longer than nine years in that rank and must then retire. Talented career officers in the U. S. and Royal navies can achieve flag rank at approximately the same age.
Lieutenant commanders reach mandatory retirement age (with pension) at
bin-
to be a
the
notice, to which the navy adds payba^ time of one to two years for any train ing he has received. ,
Women serve either in the Women Royal Naval Service (WRENS) or Queen Alexandra’s Royal Nursing $er vice. WRENS are organizationally d|S tinct from the male side, but work alongside men in shore billets, carry*n» much the same responsibility. Rare^', do they go to sea, and they earn 10 0 less than their male counterparts. Con1 missioned WRENS can reach the ran^. of chief commandant, the equivalent rear admiral.
With three million of Britain’s m°^ than 50 million people unemployed- Royal Navy is an attractive career f°r many young men and women. An en trance exam tests potential recruits t elementary English and mathematics- According to the navy, half the P°PU^ tion cannot pass it. Navy recruits ha higher test scores than those in the other British armed forces. The navy will guarantee its recruits excellent training in the job skills of their choice. ^
Recruits join the service as early a age 16. They go to HMS Raleigh f°r seven weeks of general indoctrinatin'1 and four additional weeks of seaman ship, and then on to technical train*A There are 9 to 11 pay grades in enlisted ranks, depending upon the i dividual’s skills. It is possible I chief petty officer in the technical branches by age 22, if one enters navy at 16 or 17. ^
The navy’s retention rate varies ^ pending on age. Twenty percent o entries wash out within the first eig weeks of training. The attrition rate overall is about 6%, with about 2. in officers. Ratings tend to leave a 23 or 24. ,. g
Regardless of personnel and fun 1 problems, as it showed in the Falk lands, the historic Royal Navy con.1 ues to be a first-class modem fig*1*1 force for a nation with the will an means to steam its ships across th globe in defense of British interests-
Ship’s company man the Boxer’s rails and practice a cheer they later raised for their visiting queen. With three million of Britain’s 50 million people unemployed, the navy is an attractive career prospect.
age 50, commanders at 53, and captains at 55.
Within the last few years, the Royal Navy has instituted “open engagements” for ratings. If a man is happy with the navy he can stay in until at least age 40, thereafter by selection. If he is unhappy, he can give 18 months’
Mr. Powers is a photojoumalist based in ^ Diego, California. He retired from the Na y iri 1974 as a senior chief petty officer after se ^,a| Vietnam, North Africa, the Philippines. *
War College, and Washington, D. C. He ^ nearly 20 pictorials published in Procee ,^|jcatioOs contributes frequently to other national pu and the wire services.