During the Cold War, and for a short time following the collapse of the Soviet empire, the United Kingdom had a fleet of submarines: the strategic deterrent, the hunter-killer fleet boats, and the diesel submarine flotillas.
We could justly say that we could act – independently and with our allies – across the world, and in any theatre of war.
Yet following the end of the Cold War, political decisions were made on the assumption that we no longer needed such capable forces; the peace had been won.
We lost all of our diesel submarines with one sweep of the political pen; we reduced the number of SSNs (nuclear-powered attack submarines) from a combined force of 13 Swiftsure and Trafalgar class, replacing them with highly effective but limited numbers of the Astute class (seven in total); we whittled down the shore support that would keep the boats we had at sea for longer. We stopped investing in the shore facilities that would support our submarines and provide a decent home for our submariners.
Numbers matter – it is a stark and irrefutable fact. From early in the last decade, it has become self-evident that there is a resurgent Russia. The military has known this for a considerable amount of time, and submariners never believed that the Cold War had ended.
Unfortunately, most politicians have felt it unpalatable to accept the truth of the in-house briefings and the obvious facts. In reality, we have needed to make significant steps towards re-arming and increasing our fleet capability for a decade or more.
This week’s announcement, therefore, of the intent to procure 12 replacement SSNs for the Astute class vessels, is a very welcome political acknowledgement of a military reality – and may, in time, bring us back somewhere towards where we need to be to fulfil our standing obligations, nationally, internationally, and reactively.
Increases in capability are important – they keep you at the cutting edge of war fighting and able to stand up in the most challenging of arenas – but so are raw numbers. You can have the most capable ship in the world, but if you only have one, it is vulnerable, either to mechanical failure or to enemy action. Only with numbers do you have some sort of tactical resilience and the ability to show that you can project maritime power and influence beyond your own borders.
Over the past few years, the Royal Navy has suffered from a well-publicised lack of available Astute-class subs. While the reasons for this are complicated, a significant factor is the sparing strategy adopted by the Ministry of Defence. Without a decent cache of spares, a routine mechanical issue becomes an operational showstopper.
A flotilla of seven SSNs provides some (but arguably nowhere near enough) strategic resilience to respond to international maritime demands. Once you have a submarine on a long maintenance period, two on short maintenance periods, two on operational stand-down periods and one with a short-term defect, you very quickly run out altogether.
When balanced against the above availability, the permanent operational demands of having a submarine ready to protect home waters, plus one ready to deploy to protect longer-distance interests and one potentially supporting carrier-group operations or Nato exercises, means that there is no surge capacity or room for contingent operations.
What this new announcement must not become is a short-term political statement that fails to materialise as a result of budgetary constraints. To give our fleet the tools to do the job of defending our nation, we must have at least 12 hunter-killer submarines. A further discussion could then be had about strengthening our strategic deterrent flotilla, and the rest of our maritime, land, and air-defence offering.
The sledgehammer of Putin’s military stance has finally cracked the UK’s political nut. Let us hope that we turn this intent into a reality, sign the contracts, and start the process that will regrow our defensive capability into something that can properly deter and protect our nation from an increasingly risky maritime environment.
David Bessell is a former career command-qualified submariner and a senior engineering manager at British Aerospace Submarine Systems
