Libya Saves Carrier Strike
30 August 2011
 

Maybe, just maybe, a similar sight similar to this might be seen in 2020. 
[Actually an old c.2006 image showing a RN Future Aircraft Carrier (CVF) operating F-35B STOVL
aircraft on the right, and the proposed French 'cat and trap' version of the CVF design on the left]

In October 2010 the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) shocked the Royal Navy by announcing the immediate scrapping of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and Joint Force Harrier. It also said that one of the two 65,000 tonnes Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers under construction would be sold or placed in to extended readiness (reserve).

The only ray of light in the gloom was the intention to regenerate a carrier strike capability by 2020, this consisting of one QE class carrier converted from a Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) configuration to a Catapult Assisted Take Off But Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR) ‘cat and trap’ configuration and routinely embarking 12 F-35C Joint Strike Fighters. However, despite all the cuts made in SDSR, it was soon clear that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) still had serious budget problems and that more cuts were inevitable. By early 2011 the outlook for the £10 billion ‘Carrier Strike’ programme seemed very bleak, and the RAF was coveting the use of the planned F-35C’s in order to meet its ‘Deep and Persistent Offensive Capability” requirement, i.e. a manned replacement for the Tornado GR.4 strike aircraft.

The Royal Navy then got one of the few pieces of luck that it has had in recent years. Ark Royal was decommissioned on 11 March 2011 after completing her de-storing (or rather gutting for spares). That was just eight days before the government committed the United Kingdom’s armed forces to a military intervention in Libya - Operation Ellamy (also designated Operation Unified Protector after NATO took control on 27 March).

If Ark Royal had still been available, or could have been quickly restored to an operational condition, there is little doubt that she and a scratch air group including temporarily reprieved Harrier GR.9 jets would have been assigned to Ellamy. There is also little doubt that she would have distinguished herself, and the ship would have made a triumphant return to HMNB Portsmouth around the end of August having flown hundreds of highly effective combat sorties.

However, it is also certain that the many long standing and influential critics of RN aircraft carriers would have discounted this success, claiming that the same effect could have been achieved more cheaply by the RAF from land bases in the UK and Italy – thus again proving that expensive aircraft carriers were not needed. They would then have continued to argue that new aircraft carriers were unnecessary and unaffordable by the country in the current economic climate, and that the best way to solve the MOD’s budget woes was to find a way to cancel them and scrap or sell the half built ships.

But thankfully Ark Royal was not available. As a result the government and the MOD became uncomfortably aware of just how big a loss she was, and (contrary to the view expressed in SDSR) just how useful even a small aircraft carrier with short range jump jets can be for military operations outside land-locked Afghanistan. Italy then proved the point by making very effective use of the eight AV-8B Harrier II’s based upon the ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi - an aircraft carrier even smaller than the 20,000 tonnes Ark Royal.

Despite the strenuous and unexpectedly costly (£3-5 million a day, including £40,000 a day for hotel rooms in Italy) efforts of the RAF, it could not fully plug the carrier gap and UK officials became increasingly defensive about the scale of the country’s contribution to an air campaign that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and other Ministers had so strongly advocated. Perhaps the most telling statistic is that according to NATO figures, French aircraft were flying about 33% of all strike sorties (33%) whilst the British aircraft were flying just 10% (700 out of 7,223 total sorties by August 15). Even Denmark managed more than the UK (11%), and Italy flew about as many sorties as the UK despite not starting to participate in NATO operations until April 27. Possibly the RAF’s strike sorties were more effective than allies, but on the other hand if support sorties are included in totals then its percentage of missions flown becomes even lower.

The key differentiator for France was its aircraft carrier, FNS Charles de Gaulle. Positioned off the Libyan shore, the 18 fixed wing aircraft (10 Rafale, 6 Super Etendard and 2 E-2C Hawkeye) in her hard worked air group flew 1,350 sorties (most but not all being strike sorties) during 120 days of air operations. On an average day she was flying about twice as many strike missions as the RAF could manage! Additionally, aircraft from Charles de Gaulle could react to targets of opportunity in as little as 20 minutes, by contrast it would take six hours before RAF jets based in the UK could hit a target, or 90 minutes if flying from Italian bases.

An indication of how desperate the government was becoming – and just how little military capability was left on the shelf – was the deploymen

t of the amphibious ship HMS Ocean as a makeshift “Helicopter Carrier, Attack”, with four and later five Army Air Corps Apache WAH-64 helicopters embarked. Thereafter, she was frequently referred to as an aircraft carrier in news reports!

As a result of the Libyan conflict – and the increasing recognition of the utility of aircraft carriers - leaks and media articles negative to the QE’s and the Carrier Strike programme have noticeably reduced. The promise of “the largest warships ever built for the Royal navy” has become an essential ‘fig leaf’ for ministers and officials answering criticism from all sides on the disastrous effect of the premature demise of Ark Royal and the Harrier jet.

The 8000 tonnes Lower Block 03 of HMS Queen Elizabeth being moved from Govan shipyard on the Clyde, to Rosyth dockyard for assembly. (John Linton)

The hope that the RN might actually get both QE’s rather than just one also advanced slightly when on 27 May the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, said “I will continue to press the UK Government to ensure not only that they are both constructed but that they enter into operational use."  He certainly say that both Queen Elizabeth and her sister ship Prince of Wales (likely to be renamed Ark Royal) will be fitted with the catapults, arrestor gear and other equipment necessary to operate the F-35C CV variant of the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, but the possibility was being hinted at.

Another step forward came on 18 July when it was announced that the MOD’s equipment and support budget would increase slightly from 2015 in order to provide for the conversion of one QE class (probably Prince of Wales) to cat and trap at cost of about £1 billion.  It's far from clear that this was actually additional money being added to the overall defence budget, but the priority being accorded to rebuilding a carrier strike capability was confirmed.

Then on 22 August, Gerald Howarth, Minister for International Security Strategy, told the Portsmouth News that he hoped that the next defence review, planned for 2015 will decide to keep both carriers:

"The SDSR concluded we needed one carrier but clearly that has its own limitations in availability and clearly the 2015 defence review gives us an opportunity to look again in the prevailing economic conditions and see where we go from there. Clearly, all of us would like two aircraft carriers because that gives us the continuous at-sea capability. We've had to take some pretty tough decisions but we're hoping to be in a position to recover that one in 2015."

Thanks to Libya and the pre-mature loss of Ark Royal, some of the serious mistakes made in SDSR have become impossible to ignore – even by the politician’s involved in the decisions.   Compared to last Autumn, those politicians are now more aware of the geopolitical realities facing a country that is a member of the UN Security Council,  and hopefully less inclined to make snap decisions that seriously affect both national security and national prestige (often one and the same thing).

The Royal Navy’s case for Carrier Strike has been immensely strengthened, and the service can look forward with significantly increased confidence to the decisions expected over the next year regarding the implementation of Carrier Strike.  The best case possibility is that HMS Queen Elizabeth will be completed in a STOVL configuration in 2016, to then conduct extensive first of class trails and crew training exercises, including with allied Harriers and F-35B’s. Prince of Wales will then be delivered in 2019 in a cat and trap configuration, becoming operational the next year with 6 and later 12 F-35C's.  Queen Elizabeth can then be refitted and converted to a similar standard in a c.2020-22 time frame, allowing the RN to guarantee the availability of a UK strike carrier 100% rather than 60% of the time.

Even the RAF seems to have reconciled itself to the fact that Carrier Strike will happen, and has agreed that the manning of the F-35C squadrons will be shared 60:40 with the Fleet Air Arm. The problem now is to buy enough F-35C’s to form the three front-line squadrons of 12 aircraft that are needed to fill the decks of a QE in a crisis, and for once the RN and RAF will present a unified front!

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