Future Of The Royal Navy
At the beginning of the 1990s the Royal Navy was a force designed for the Cold War: with its three small aircraft carriers and a force of anti-submarine frigates and destroyers, its main purpose was to search for – and in the event of an actual declaration of war, to destroy – Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic. The 1982 Falklands War proved a need for the Royal Navy to maintain an expeditionary capability.
However, since the end of the Cold war in the early 1990s, the Royal Navy has been forced to make an ever increasing number of commitments, while suffering a gradual reduction in the size of its surface fleet. Recent cuts have seen the retirement of the Sea Harrier with the Royal Navy sharing the Royal Air Force's Harrier GR7/GR9, until 2010, when the Harrier GR7/GR9 was retired. Until delivery of the Joint Combat Aircraft (F-35) and the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers Britain will have no fixed-wing carrier strike capability. Cuts have also seen the early paying-off of three Type 23 frigates.
Over the course of the 1990s and the 2000s, the navy has begun a series of projects to improve its fleet, with a view to providing enhanced capabilities, although many of these have been cut or cancelled. This has led to the replacement of smaller and more numerous units with fewer, but larger, units. The main examples of this are the replacement of Type 42 destroyers with half as many Type 45s and the confirmed replacement of the three 20,000 tonne Invincible-class aircraft carriers with two 65,000 tonne Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
There are currently 7 ships and submarines under construction: four Astute-class submarines (boats 3-6), the final Type 45 destroyer (ship 6), and the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, which began construction in July 2009 and May 2011. Preparatory and design work has begun on the Type 26 frigate programme, which will replace the existing frigate fleet from 2020, as well as a (now separate) scheme to replace a large number of the Royal Navy's minor vessels.
Read more about Future Of The Royal Navy: Mine Countermeasures, Hydrography and Patrol Capability Programme, Submarines, Fleet Air Arm
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