[T]he traditional metric of how a navy can deploy is that it requires a roughly 3:1 ratio to sustain a vessel on a task indefinitely — in very rough terms this means that when a ship is deployed on OP KIPION, her successor is nominated and working up through to being on passage to join her (e.g. HMS Daring saw HMS Monmouth sail sometime before being relieved). At least one more ship is going to be somewhere in the refit system requiring essential maintenance, upkeep and life extension work too. This 3:1 ratio is something which can be broken, and availability can vary over time — but as a general rule if you want to keep a ship on task for the long haul, you’ll need three ships to do this.
In the case of the current RN, the force of 19 hulls is actually 17, with two in long term “harbour training ship” (NOT reserve which has a specific and different meaning) roles to save on manpower levels. This means the RN is sweating its assets incredibly hard to keep ships on task for the long haul — particularly at a point when the T23 fleet is starting to show its age, and also go through a complex Mid Life Update process — at its simplest, ships designed for 18 years of life will be nearly 40 before they leave service, and it’s showing.
But, the risk is that in looking at the headline figure of “only” 6 escorts, we lose the ability to explain that this is actually pretty good by any navy’s standards. If you look at the world’s navies right now, there are very few which are able to deploy and sustain more than one or two ships at distance from home — the USN, occasionally the French and Russians and that’s about it. Others can do some quite impressive training deployments, more for showing the flag than delivering effect. Other navies may deploy escorts, but to do so occupies a big chunk of their naval training and output for the year to deliver this, at the hidden cost of keeping other ships alongside.
Don’t make the lethal mistake of assuming that because the RN “only” has 6 ships out there that every other navy is laughing at it. In fact the RN’s ability to sweat its force so hard remains a real point of awe for other nations, who are amazed at how much the RN can do at one time.
Sir Humphrey, “Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics”, Thin Pinstriped Line, 2017-07-09.
September 28, 2019
QotD: Ship availability in the Royal Navy
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