Beset by political infighting and rising costs, the Royal Navy's new generation of aircraft carriers faces an uncertain future.
The Royal Navy's most important-and in some respects most controversial-program is the future aircraft carrier (CVF). The two-ship program now planned will produce the largest warships ever built by Britain. If they are not constructed, the future effectiveness of the Royal Navy will be reduced to coastal operations.
The Defence Review
The Strategic Defence Review (SDR), subtitled "Modern Forces for the Modern World," was produced in 1998, a year after the election of a new Labour government led by Tony Blair. The document presented a clear rationale for every capability deemed necessary for British forces. One American commentator described the review as making "British armed forces more mobile, and hence more useful, for the post-Soviet world." In comparing the performance of other allied countries he said, "Where Britain stands out is in its ability to deploy forces to places where they might actually be needed."1 It was seen as an example to all nations, even the United States, in restructuring and tailoring forces to meet the changed strategic environment.
The SDR called for an expeditionary strategy spear-headed by the modernized Joint Rapid Reaction Forces to be achieved by coordinating the activities of the three services more closely, pooling their capabilities while cutting out duplication and waste. In amplifying this strategy it said, "In the post Cold War world, we must be prepared to go to the crisis, rather than have the crisis come to us. So we plan to buy two new larger aircraft carriers to project power more flexibly around the world."2
The review also stated that at sea the emphasis was moving away from large scale open ocean operations to "littoral operations and force projection, for which maritime forces are well suited."3 To meet the longer-term needs, the plan specified the requirement to replace the current carriers "from around 2012 by two larger, more versatile, carriers capable of carrying a more powerful force, including a future carrier borne aircraft to replace the Harrier."4 One of the supporting essays explained that the ability to deploy offensive air power would be central to future force projection operations and that "present thinking suggests" that the ships would be in the order of 30,000-40,000 tons and capable of deploying up to 50 aircraft, including helicopters.5
The project quickly received "initial gate" approval in December 1998 and a month later Invitations to Tender were issued by the Ministry of Defence (MOD). Responses were received the following May from British Aerospace (subsequently to become BAE Systems after its take over of Marconi Electronics) and Thompson-CSF (also changing its name to Thames after taking over Racal Electronics) and by November 1999 contracts for the Assessment Phase, to be completed by 2003, were awarded to both teams. This was an extremely detailed procedure, requiring the production of six ship design studies to evaluate and compare the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL), short take-off but arrested landing (STOBAR), and conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) options of operating aircraft from different sizes of carrier. By July 2002 the future aircraft carrier had increased in size to something in the order of 65,000 tons full load, in contrast to the 50,000 tons of the last large aircraft carrier in the Royal Navy, the Ark Royal, decommissioned in 1978.
The building of such ships will therefore return the Royal Navy to big carrier operations and status lost almost three decades ago. The subtlety behind the design for the Invincible class, originally disguised under the designation of "through-deck cruisers" when they first entered service in 1980 and intended by government plans only to operate helicopters, was that they looked like aircraft carriers and hence were easily convertible to fixed-wing operations at the opportune moment.
The Falklands campaign of 1982 would not have been won without Invincible and the much older Hermes, a medium sized carrier still in service. The Royal Navy has always retained its global capability, but these new ships will greatly increase its strike and air defense capability, taking it to a level beyond those navies operating small carriers. It will also provide an enhanced punch to forces generated by NATO and also, if necessary, for European Union operations that are supported by NATO under the "Berlin plus" arrangement. In addition, they should be a welcome addition to any combined U.S./U.K. task force and act as a supplement to U.S. Navy carrier deployment planners.
Doubts About BAE
On 30 January 2003 the secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, announced to the House of Commons that the carriers would be designed and built by an alliance between the ministry and industry, with BAE Systems taking the lead role as prime contractor, responsible for program and project management, system integration, and management of the build program, and Thames acting as the key supplier.
This did not attract favorable comment, being considered by some as a "cop out" and failure to make a decisive decision, although Lord Bach, the Minister for Defence Procurement, claimed that by pooling resources, "we will be best placed to exploit the available expertise and skills to ensure that the project is delivered in the most cost-effective way possible." The cost of procuring the ships was announced as £2.9 billion, with an additional £6.4 billion in through life costs.
However, the MOD has had a history of acrimonious relations with BAE Systems over serious cost overruns in some earlier projects, such as the Astute-class attack submarine and the Nimrod MRA.4 maritime patrol aircraft, and was thought to have reservations over the effectiveness of the country's prime defense contractor. The lack of accord continued throughout 2004 and a large part of 2005, but by the end of that year a considerable degree of harmony had been restored, not only as a consequence of significant effort on the part of BAE, but also because it had produced good results in stabilizing the Type 45 destroyer building program, not least as a consequence of using computer aided design (CAD).
The lessons learned from this experience can be applied to the carrier program to achieve the optimum level of CAD modelling for both design change and error. Defence secretary, John Reid, announced in December that the next stage had been agreed to and that the ships would be built in separate blocks in at least four yards and then assembled in Babcock's Yard in Rosyth, all under the management of BAE, who will also lead the Mission Systems design team. Nevertheless, considerable press speculation was confirmed when the House of Commons Defence Committee published a report in December claiming that, as a consequence of the delays, the in-service dates had slipped by two years.6
Aircraft Issues
In the meantime, options were being considered for a successor to the Royal Navy's Sea Harrier and the Royal Air Force's Harrier GR.7, currently embarked in the three Invincible-class STOVL carriers, to be deployed in the CVF. The U.S. Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) was always a prime candidate, but feasibility studies were conducted into alternative options, including the CTOL version of JSF, the F/A-18E, the French carrier-borne Rafale-M, a potential navalized Eurofighter, and even an advanced Harrier.
However, the STOVL version of JSF, subsequently designated F-35, was the clear value for money winner in terms of both cost and capability. A ski-jump for short take off launches would be installed on the CVF, but in order to obtain maximum flexibility, the ship design would be fitted for, but not with, catapults and arrestor gear so that if necessary in the long term, perhaps post-F-35, the design would be capable of modification to CTOL operations.
The option for the CVF is to be open for other variants, which could certainly be taken up were there to be a major difficulty, such as, for example, the recently reported problem of operating the STOVL version of the F-35 because of its excessive weight.7 However, the costs of this huge multi-national project are increasing, and it also seems possible that the aircraft might not meet the planned inservice date of the first carrier (2012) although this could yet harmonize with the slippage of the platform date.8
There is, however, one sour note to this project. After five years of intense lobbying to secure an exemption for the U.K. from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) a hostile U.S. Congress turned it down in spite of significant support from President Bush, and Prime Minister Blair's plea that access to U.S. defense technologies is essential if the two countries' armed forces are to remain interoperable, especially in a project in which the U.K. is playing a major part. The British people feel that this is a very shoddy way to treat an ally that has given the United States significant political and military support over the past few years and whose navy has had a close relationship with the U.S. Navy for decades.
The carrier air group will also include what is called the Maritime Airborne Surveillance and Control system (MASC) which will provide cover against both air and surface threats and a C3 capability for other air operations, replacing the current Sea King airborne early-warning helicopters.
Complicated Contracts
Several other factors add to the complexity of this program. Initially the Ministry of Defence, because of the magnitude of the project and its doubts about the efficiency of BAE, had decided that it would assume an overseeing role. Eventually, it was decided to pass this responsibility on to a commercial organization, but the outfit chosen, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), proved highly controversial, particularly as it was a unit of the U.S. defense group Halliburton, which is being investigated in response to allegations of corruption, but, perhaps more germane, has no experience in shipbuilding.
When it seemed that KBR would take over a significant part of the contract, BAE threatened to pull out of the arrangement altogether. After intense negotiations presided over by the MOD in a very short period in early February 2005, rather surprisingly an agreement was reached. The ministry agreed to limit KBR's role to advising the MOD and overseeing financial controls, timetables, and planning.
The yards in which the ships will be built are themselves something of an issue in that there is no longer enough work to sustain them individually, even though the Royal Navy is embarking on one of its largest shipbuilding programs in many years. There was a recent proposal to form a new naval shipbuilder, combining all of Britain's yards (with the exception of Swan Hunter) that would be owned by the U.K.'s four shipbuilders, but run under separate management. Swan Hunter, on the Tyne in northeast England, has had severe viability problems, but had been expected to work as a subcontractor under the two project leaders BAE and Thames. Now the yard could be asked to share the financial risk of building the ships in return for a share of the main contract.
Orders should have been placed by the first half of 2005 to ensure that the ships, which will have electric propulsion and carry two famous battleship names, Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales, enter service by the target dates of 2012 and 2015. In March 2005 a 100-day pause in the detailed planning was announced. BAE has also indicated that if the ships are to be about 60,000 tons, then it believes the cost would be in the region of £4 billion, a significant increase that the government cannot afford, although it privately admits the cost will actually be £3.5 billion.9
This may well be part of the shadow boxing before the program gets seriously under way, but if there were indeed such a significant mismatch it could lead to serious compromises in both design and performance, with consequent delays so there is still a significant amount of haggling to be done.
The French Connection
The involvement of France is another intriguing dimension to the plot. It was obvious that the French would have an interest in the development of the program across the Channel. Aside from the highly publicized problems that have dogged the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle since its commission, it soon became evident to the French that one carrier was not sufficient to replace Clemenceau and Foch. To have a viable maritime force structure, they had to have a second carrier, yet in going down the nuclear path, particularly for a relatively small ship, it seemed to most analysts that a grave error had been made since the French could not afford another nuclear-powered vessel. The silent agenda was a conventionally-powered ship, so the British plan was a lifeline, although it would never have been expressed as such, and any hint of collaboration has been treated with greatest reserve by both sides.
The British are determined that there should be no delay or compromise on any element of the design or capability and they do hold the whip hand. Nevertheless, in June 2004, the British and French defense ministers signed letters of intent to cement the concept of future cooperation between the two navies over the development of new aircraft carriers. Details of the carrier, Porte Avion 2 (PA2), to be produced by Thales (thus involved in both contracts) and Directions des Constructions Navales (DCN), have emerged and it appears that, although there are too many differences for there to be an international production program, there is potential for cooperation on propulsion systems, aviation support systems such as elevators and landing aids, and ship infrastructure. It is even possible that joint accommodation modules could be produced.10
In late January 2006 the French Defence Minister, Michelle Alliot-Marie, visited London to discuss the project. It was subsequently announced that France would pay up to £140 million to develop an aircraft carrier based on the U.K. design and the possibility of much closer cooperation than originally envisaged became more likely when Defence secretary Reid stated that any decision to join the two programs officially would be made at the end of 2006.11
The final investment decision on the ships will not be made until shortly before June 2007, so the original date of commissioning HMS Queen Elizabeth will probably slip some two years. However, there is no more time to spare and there will have to be a significant increase in momentum if this key element of the government's expeditionary military philosophy is not to fall seriously behind the planned dates. Britain's economy is in excellent shape, but were there to be any future problems that necessitated cuts in government spending, the carriers could become vulnerable because they are high cost one line items that could easily be adjusted or even taken out of the program to produce readily available savings in the short term.
The Royal Navy sacrificed too many other assets in the defense cuts of 2004 on the long-term altar of the carrier project. Politicians and civil servants can have remarkably short memories when it suits them and the credit gained for such sacrifices might not be so tangible a few years down the line.
1 Michael O'Hanlon, "U.K. Review Gets It Right," Defense News, 20-26 July 1998. p. 33.
2 Strategic Defence Review, Introduction by the secretary of State for Defence, para. 6, p. 2.
3 Strategic Defence Review, Chapter 5, para 85, p. 22.
4 Ibid. para. 115, p. 29.
5 Strategic Defence Review, Supporting Essays, Essay Six, Future Military Capabilities, paras 26-28, pps. 6-7 to 6-8.
6 Financial Times, 21 December 2005.
7 Financial Times, 8 April 2005.
8 Further memorandum by the Ministry of Defence, Written Evidence submitted to the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence, in April 2004, Section 12, para. 6 stated, "...the work to mature the design to meet weight targets necessary to achieve desired performance levels has proved much more demanding than expected...the STOVL performance projections.... present the greatest concern... performance against the Key User Requirements is difficult to predict, but the baselining will unavoidably carry with it a significant time and cost penalty to the JSF programme."
9 Tracey Boyles, "Aircraft carrier cost rises to new high of £3.5bn," Scotland on Sunday, Business section, 8 May 2005.
10 "Collaboration could be the key to new aircraft carrier programmes," Royal Institute of Naval Architects Journal, 17 January 2005, p. 15.
11 Financial Times, 25 January 2006.
Captain Wilson, Senior Research Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris, is an independent strategic analyst. A career naval officer, he has held major ship commands and was for five years head of Defence Studies, the Royal Navy's link with defense academia.