The Problem: The UK is investing in the Navy but has limited funds and an uncertain future of war.
The Solution: Develop a series of cheap, semi-autonomous naval weapons platforms instead of a conventional Navy.
This post has been on my list for a long time, but with the recent announcement by Boris Johnson of increased investment in Defence, especially the Navy, Cyber and Space, it seemed the time to write it.
The nature of war is constantly changing, with more advanced weapon systems being invented, and adversaries deploying a range of tactics in both the conventional and unconventional spheres, including counter-insurgency and asymmetric warfare.
Great power competition continues and there remains a risk of conventional state-on-state conflict that the UK may be drawn into, as well as an enduring need to project force around the world on the seas and from the seas in support of land operations.
Given the state of the world and warfare and the budget constraints the UK faces, spending large sums on individual ships is placing all the eggs in a very few baskets; vessels such as the latest aircraft carrier are too valuable to deploy to most wars.
Instead, I propose making a much more expendable Navy, which is largely autonomous and utilises Stalin’s adage that ‘quantity has a quality all of itself’.
Instead of conventional frigates and aircraft carriers, I would develop a series of hybrid weapons platforms. These would be conventional freight ships, relatively cheap and easy to build and with good performance, which would then be adapted to be loaded with an array of weapon systems and a simple runway and storage area for drone aircraft.
There would be a small crew, who would live in the tower on the end of the ship, which would be heavily armoured for personal protection, and which would detach and float if the ship was attacked and destroyed, to preserve the lives of the crew. The crew would be there solely to monitor the progress of the ship and fix any mechanical issues. All weapons firing and drone piloting would be carried out from the UK, similar to how drones are already being flown from Arizona.
The crew would, however, have a manual system to launch weapons and drones in case of an enemy communications jamming attack. Also, if the ship was likely to be destroyed, it would launch all of its weapon systems at the targets that had attacked it.
By having few people on board, the vessel would be able to have maximum firepower – both a defensive capability to prevent attack, and an array of anti-air, anti-submarine, anti-ship and sea-land missiles to attack targets.
As the ships would just be adapted freight ships, they would cost less to build, so more could be built, and would be more expendable, all the while also bringing massively enhanced firepower.
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