#Endless sky fleet size full

Of all the Services, the Government is most ambitious for the Navy. We have the shipyards and the know-how to build them: the Government just needs to place the orders and give UK shipbuilding the commitment and confidence it needs to deliver. Overall our Navy needs more ships, armed with more lethal weapons and the most up to date technology. We need a firm hand on the tiller to navigate us through the next decade. However, the Ministry of Defence has a poor track record projects like this. The timely delivery of these new ships is crucial to plug the hole in our naval capabilities. The UK is faced with an increasingly hostile and unpredictable international environment but the Government is still reducing funding, retiring capability and asking the Navy to rely on increasingly elderly vessels for the next five years until new ships come in. The next ten years will prove a test for our naval fleet. To maintain our position as one of the leading global navies, the Government must deliver a rapid programme of modernisation and growth. “The Royal Navy has a long and proud history protecting our nation at sea. This expansion will require a significant increase in funding.”Ĭhair of the Defence Committee, Tobias Ellwood MP, said: The resource budget, personnel and the number of auxiliary vessels should grow commensurately. If the Navy intends to deliver all missions, especially the presence the IR specifies, growth of major surface combatants needs to double, with growth from small, adaptable vessels. We are not convinced that increased availability can produce enough vessels to be relied upon in an emergency. A large part of the Government’s plan to address this relies on increasing availability, as well as through the Type 32 programme. It needs more lower-end, adaptable vessels, like the planned Type 31 frigate, toįulfil the presence operations planned.

#Endless sky fleet size full

“The Navy cannot fulfil the full ambition of the Integrated Review with its currentįleet. Funding, personnel and support shipping must grow commensurately.” The escort fleet needs to double in size by acquiring more low-end capability to carry out low-end tasks, alongside ships capable of carrying out the Navy’s high-end warfighting commitments.Īttack submarine numbers should also grow to reflect the growing importance of the subsurface domain. “As we look to the future, the Navy’s fleet is too small and too specialised to meet the demands that will be placed on it over the next two decades. The fleet will continue to suffer from well-documented problems for at least the next few years, most notably including its very size. However, successive governments’ “failure to fund the ha’porth of tar the Royal Navy needs has literally spoiled the ships”.

The Defence Committee found that Royal Navy remains one of the most capable forces in the world.