Ist die Royal Navy nun eine zweitrangige europäische Seemacht?

Oh cool. Another article designed to convince the public we need to upgrade the Navy and build more boats.

Is the navy with four nuclear subs and two aircraft carriers second rate?

No.

People have no conception of what average is

Ireland here,,, you should see the shit show we have even as a minnow nation!! Our govt and defence policy are shameful!

You lot are doing just fine.

Was this article written by Charles de Gaulle himself? The Royal Navy has a total tonnage roughly equal to the French, Italian and German Navy *combined*. That is how large the Royal Navy is.

The article states that the French Navy is quantifiably superior to the Royal Navy because they have more destroyers and frigates. While numerically this may be true on the surface, it completely ignores that Royal Navy ships are, on average, superior to their French counterparts. The Royal Navy has 6 Type 45 destroyers, each with 48 VLS cells and soon to be 72 in the near future once upgrades are complete this decade.

The French Navy only has 2 equivalent vessels, their *Horizon*-class destroyers which were actually borne from the same programme that birthed the Type 45 destroyer. These vessels each have 48 VLS cells but with no plans to increase this number in the near future. Instead, the French Navy decided to build out more numerous but significantly smaller frigates known as the *Aquitaine*-class frigate to pad out their surface ship numbers. These ships are nowhere near as capable as the *Horizon*-class and Type 45 destroyers with significantly inferior radars and a smaller VLS complement. The French Navy has 8 of these ships with 6 dedicated to ASW and 2 dedicated to AAW with each having 32 VLS cells.

Additionally, they also have 5 *La Fayette*-class frigates to further pad out their numbers but none of these ships have any VLS cells so they are basically completely defenceless and downright useless for anything more intense patrols around regions that the French Navy never expects to encounter an enemy in.

So, in actuality, the French Navy only has 10 ships with VLS cells compared to the Royal Navy’s 15. Every Royal Navy ship also carries at least the same number of VLS cells as their French counterparts as well. With 48 VLS cells on each Type 45 destroyer and 32 VLS cells on each Type 23 frigate, that gives the Royal Navy a total VLS count of 576 compared to the French Navy’s 352. The Royal Navy has *significantly* more VLS cells than the French Navy. Hell, just the Royal Navy’s fleet of Type 45 destroyers have a combined VLS cell count approaching that of the entire French Navy. By the end of this decade, the Type 45 destroyers will each be upgraded to enable them to carry 72 VLS cells in total, bringing the total VLS count for just the fleet of Type 45 destroyers up to 432. This is significantly more than the entire French Navy.

Additionally, by the end of this decade, the Royal Navy will have all 5 Type 31 frigates, each of which will be larger than the Type 23 frigates it is replacing and also with 32 VLS cells. The Royal Navy will also likely be inducting a couple Type 26 frigates by then, each of which will be even larger than the Type 31 frigates and will come with 48 VLS cells, an upgrade over the 32 in the Type 23 frigates it will also be replacing. The VLS cell disparity between the French Navy and Royal Navy is only expected to grow exponentially by the end of this decade. And when it comes to modern naval warfare, VLS cells are everything.

This isn’t even mentioning the fact the *Queen Elizabeth*-class carriers are significantly larger than the *Charles de Gaulle* and the fact there are 2 of them means the Royal Navy will always have one ready for a deployment if necessary. The French Navy cannot say the same because they only have a single carrier. This is a massive capability gap as enemies can just time their offensive actions to when France is pulling their carrier in for refit and maintenance to avoid having to deal with all of that.

The Royal Navy also has a significantly larger auxiliary replenishment fleet, enabling them to have a far more robust power projection capability than the French Navy whose own auxiliary replenishment fleet is significantly smaller and less capable.

The Royal Navy’s undersea fleet is also more capable than the French Navy’s. The *Astute*-class is a much larger SSN than the *Suffren*-class both in terms of tonnage and armament. The *Astute*-class has storage for 38 weapons whilst the *Suffren*-class only has storage for 20. The Royal Navy will also eventually have 7 of these ships whilst the French Navy will only have 6 once all is said and done. So the total weapons complement for the Royal Navy’s undersea fleet will be 266 whilst it will only be 120 for the French Navy, less than *half*.

When it comes to European navies, no navy even comes *close* to the Royal Navy. And this is *despite* the fact the Royal Navy now is probably at its most dire point in decades. If the Royal Navy at its worst is still *this* much more powerful than the second most powerful European navy, wait until you see what the 2030s bring when the full fleet of Type 26 and 31 frigates comes into service and the Type 45 destroyers finish their upgrades. This isn’t even mentioning the fact the Royal Navy’s carrier strike capability is only set to get more powerful by the end of the decade. They will have access to more and more F-35Bs every year to put on a carrier air wing and they will eventually gain the ability to use the Meteor, SPEAR-3 and FC/ASW which will give the Royal Navy some serious AShW capabilities.

For a little bit of fun maths, by the mid-2030s we should have the full fleet of Type 26 and 31 frigates ready and given their VLS counts, the Royal Navy would have a combined VLS count of 976. That is a staggering amount and more than the VLS counts of most of the major European navies put together. If Labour decides they want to go forward with the Type 32 frigate programme and that those ships are essentially just a second batch of 5 additional Type 31 frigates, that could bring our total VLS count up to 1,136. We will see if Labour wants to expand our surface combatant fleet to 24 ships in next year’s SDR.

The UK used to be the biggest military power in the world but the US largely took that with them. Comedians like Al Murray might bawk that the UK beat America in the war of 1812, but it’s very clear that the US took imperial might with it. The Victorian era was alright and the world wars were kinda Britain’s last military hurrah. Everything post-1945 is decline and a lot of military action was only taken at America’s behest.

To be honest, I’m kind of amazed that the UK’s navy has remained as competitive as it has. It regularly gets said to be the most powerful in Europe alongside France.

With how well bonded and consolidated Europe has become over the 20th and 21st century, I’m surprised there haven’t been more talks on a European-wide military project/organisation of sorts.

Worth watching

https://youtu.be/vh4e6EmqC4I?si=wjVyh74Qu9N5BF3T

We used to spend 25% of GDP on our navy. Source : The Rise and Fall of British Naval Power

Our current public spending is £1,276BN approx so the equivalent expenditure today would be £319BN a year on the Royal Navy

First there’s a story about an aircraft carrier that needs some maintenance.

Then there’s a story about another ship not able to perform some small function.

Then a month later there’s a story like this, OMG the ships are all terrible, we’re dooooooomed!

It’s a pattern over and over again and I hope the majority starts getting wise to it.

It’s the same in politics.

Oh here’s a new government.

Oh now it turns out the Prime Minister gets a free seat to comply with security need at a soccer match.

Then it’s Rachel Reeves for 50 days and how she’s either not up to the job, or she may set everyone’s tax rate at 98%.

Then it’s OMG the government is divided and no one in the country likes them, oh no, whatever will we do.

It’s interminable and it’s trash. Unfortunately every media outlet, even the BBC (who seem to be on AI autopilot) are doing it. It’s terrible.

Im 40 born in london living in switzerland. Finished my compulsory military service and i would like to join the Royal Navy. 😁 Come on take me Navy recruiters. We will need the Navy in the future.

No one can match our aircraft carriers and subs. Royal Navy doctrine is superior in the European continent