Strike carriers and amphibious forces are the enablers for this theatre entry capability.
Indeed, being an island, all operations beyond our shores are expeditionary and demand theatre entry. As an island nation, the country needs a broadly maritime strategy – one that has sea control at its core, but which enables power and influence to be projected inland. So what exactly is this amphibious capability? Britain’s security and prosperity requires unimpeded maritime access and transit. “Under fire particularly, it seems, is our invaluable amphibious capability. Writing in Politics Home, the former naval chief argues for the retention of the vessels that rumours say may be axed. Lord West of Spithead, a Former First Sea Lord, has argued that Britain’s security and prosperity requires amphibious capability. The painful lesson from history is that spending less on defence does not make us more secure it does not make those threats go away, it just makes us less able to deal with them.” HMS Albion operating at night.īut it is hard to avoid the obvious conclusion that we will need to spend more now to preserve UK effective capabilities. I am certainly in favour of our thinking carefully about how we use the overseas aid and defence budgets together to secure greater security results. I am all in favour of the defence industry co-operating with government in the efficiency review: I think they should. We need “Bulwark” and “Albion” to retain that capability.
Our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan led us, rightly, to conclude that they needed to be better protected: they needed to be stronger, heavier vehicles. They are incapable of supporting and mounting large-scale amphibious operations with the fighting vehicles that the Army now has. I do not believe that the QE2 class carriers-they are brilliant ships and I am proud to see them serving in the Royal Navy-have the equivalent capability.
“I am absolutely opposed to the United Kingdom acting unilaterally-for example, by announcing the end of our effective amphibious capability. Lord Hutton was speaking during a debate on British defence forces in the House of Lords where he said: The ships act as the afloat command platform for the Royal Navy’s Amphibious Task Force and Landing Force Commanders when embarked.Ī former Defence Secretary had warned that withdrawing the Albion class would ‘end British amphibious capability’. The LPDs can carry 256 troops, with their vehicles and combat supplies, and this can be swollen up to 405 troops. In the words of her operators, the Royal Navy, the role of the HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion, is to ‘deliver the punch of the Royal Marines ashore by air and by sea, with boats from the landing dock in the belly of the ship and by assault helicopter from the two-spot flight deck’. The out-of-service dates for HMS ALBION and HMS BULWARK will remain 20 respectively. Both ships remain on their current schedule to be removed from service in the early 2030s.” “The out of service dates for HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark have not changed as a result of the Integrated Review. Jeremy Quin, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, replied: “To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether the out of service dates for HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark have changed as a result of the Integrated Review.” Luke Pollard, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, asked via a written Parliamentary question. In what is now an annual trend, speculation has been mounting that the Albion class LPDs would be retired earlier. Both assault ships are to remain on their current schedule to be retired from service in the early 2030s.
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