U.K. BUDGET CUTS MAY TARGET ROYAL NAVY AMPHIBIOUS VESSELS

The future of Britain's amphibious warfare capabilities will come under the microscope this year, along with the rest of the military, as a post-election defense review seeks to square a new government's foreign policy aspirations with a potentially crushing shortage of funds, writes Defense News

The Royal Navy's 5 billion pound ($8 billion) program to build two 65,000-metric-ton aircraft carriers is among the potential casualties in any dial-back in capabilities, as Britain targets defense as a department where spending may be cut to pay down its crippling public finance debt.

Cancellation of one or both carriers by a new government is a concern here, and the move would have a severe impact on potential amphibious assets.

The carriers, the first of which is under construction, have been deliberately designed to be able to operate helicopters such as the Chinook and Apache for amphibious operations as well to carry strike aircraft.

The size of Britain's Royal Navy has been shrinking for years, with escort ship numbers bearing the brunt of the cuts. Last month, the government announced a further reduction, taking a hydrographic ship and a minesweeper out of service to help pay for equipment needed in Afghanistan.

The general downsizing of the Navy, though, has not yet affected amphibious warfare capabilities. The current Labour Party administration may have a poor record funding Britain's armed forces, but capability in amphibious shipping has grown considerably in the last decade or so.

Most of the warships were on the drawing board before Labour came to power in 1997, but they were backed by a strategic defense review the following year, which emphasized expeditionary warfare. The Royal Navy and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary have added two Albion-class landing platform docks, four Bay-class landing ship docks and an Ocean-class helicopter assault ship in the last 12 years.

How vulnerable the amphibious capability will be to defense cuts as the next government seeks to remedy Britain's ailing public finances is a decision for the strategic defense review planned by all three major parties here after the election, which must be called by early June.

Nobody knows how the review will play out, but senior naval sources said that while littoral maneuver remains a pillar of the maritime defense strategy, alongside the aircraft carriers and nuclear deterrence, they are confident Britain will retain a significant capability in the sector.

"Where else in the military do you get the combination of being able to deliver anything from soft-power projection to hard-power delivery of violence into the battlespace, at a time and place of our choosing, from a sovereign base sitting off someone's coastline?" a senior naval source said. "Littoral maneuver is part of the family silver and should not be sacrificed for the short-term aberration that is Afghanistan.

"The worst-case scenario is that one or two of the vessels are put on low readiness," the source added. "These are not generally high-end technology ships, and regeneration from being alongside would not be difficult once the MoD's financial issues are resolved. In terms of getting rid of them altogether, no, I don't see that."

A former senior MoD official agreed.

"There is little in the way of early savings to be made from cutting the amphibious warfare capability here except in running cost and people," he said. "In the end, though, whether any of them go or whether they stay comes down to what kind of nation the defense review wants us to be."

Logistically Sustained From Sea

A Royal Navy spokesman justified continued high-level amphibious capabilities, saying, "every military intervention engaged in by the U.K. has been logistically sustained from the sea and therefore has an amphibious underpinning. As an example, Afghanistan was an amphibious operation at its inception, with forces launched from, sustained from and recovered to HMS Illustrious in the Indian Ocean.

"Today, our operations in Afghanistan are dependent on sustainment from the sea, and 50 percent of air power over Afghanistan comes from [U.S. Navy] carrier-based air."

Lee Willett, the head of maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute here, said one immediate issue for amphibious-capability supporters is the fact that the war in Afghanistan has taken the focus away from naval operations.

"The Royal Marines have a high public profile and are heavily engaged in fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, but they are not being used in the way they are trained for - they are being flown in and out of the country by the Royal Air Force," he said.

"Nevertheless, the requirement for high-end punch to go ashore, as well as the ability to conduct conflict prevention and humanitarian roles, gives the British government political and military options, which should make the case for amphibious even stronger in future," Willett said. "If Britain wants to retain expeditionary capabilities, it will need amphibious assets."

A second analyst said it is "all about money. An amphibious warfare capability is expensive. There may have to be cuts, particularly during a time when littoral maneuver is having a holiday while the Marines are used as light infantry in Afghanistan."

Naturally, that is not how the Royal Navy sees its activities. For example, last year the amphibious forces took part in a major naval exercise to the Far East, regenerating core skills along the way. Funds permitting, the Navy plans another big amphibious exercise for 2011, while a strike carrier exercise that will include amphibious assets, including the helicopter assault ship HMS Ocean, is planned with the U.S. military this year.

Cuts to frigate and destroyer fleets are pushing amphibs into roles they were never designed for. For example, Bay-class Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships are in places such as the Caribbean and in the Arabian Gulf supporting operations in Iraq.

The amphibious warfare capabilities of the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers could be scrutinized during the defense review.

Willett said the Royal Navy is reinforcing the view that the carriers are more than just strike platforms and provide a flexibility that other assets can't match.

"It is important to keep the two new carriers and HMS Ocean if Britain wanted to guarantee a comprehensive amphibious capability," he said. Ocean is tied into the issue of whether the Navy has three platforms - one carrier strike, one amphibious and one in maintenance. It makes Ocean and its replacement, around the end of the next decade, vital, he said.

The ex-MoD official said that building 65,000-metric-ton warships to be part-time amphibious vessels is an "incredibly expensive" way of providing capability.

"It doesn't really make sense. Perhaps it would be better to buy more Ocean- or Albion-class ships at a fraction of the cost," he said.