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When HMS Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s largest warship, enters Portsmouth harbour later this year, millions of pounds and man hours will have been spent ensuring absolutely nothing has been left to chance. From dredging a channel deep enough to allow the first of the Royal Navy’s 65,000-tonne Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers to enter port, to planning emergency drills for crew on board, or maintaining sophisticated technology – everything will have been meticulously planned. By summer, a team from Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Portsmouth and BAE Systems working in support of the naval base commander – will have spent a year...

UK Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon and his US counterpart, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, officially confirmed plans for the US Marine Corps F-35B to be detached aboard the Royal Navy's new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier during its maiden operational deployment set for 2021. This announcement was made December 15th during a ministerial meeting in London. USMC file picture: Two F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters complete vertical landings aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) during the opening day of the first session of operational testing. On the margins of the ministerial meeting, Sir Michael also deepened UK...

The Royal Navy will receive two more River-class offshore patrol vessels – and the motto of one appears to encourage her crew to vomit everywhere. HMS Tamar and HMS Spey were ordered from BAE Systems today as the Ministry of Defence signed the contract for the two ships, with Minister for Defence Procurement Harriett Baldwin pressing the official button to start cutting the first steel. Both were ordered to take up the slack in naval shipbuilding between now and the eventual start of the construction of the Type 26 frigate. The two new ships, along with the support package for...

A Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer has been towed back into port just two days after it sailed following a total propulsion failure while taking part in Nato exercises. The Daring class warship, HMS Duncan, left Devonport naval base at Plymouth on Sunday take part in a series of maritime wargames with Spanish, Portuguese and German warships. But the 4,500 tonne hi-tech ship limped back into Plymouth on Wednesday under tow and shadowed by three additional dockyard tugs as well as the Ministry of Defence police.

The Defence Committee Report say that the Ministry of Defence has yet to explain how it will replace its 13 ageing frigates—due to leave service at the rate of one per year between 2023 and 2035—whilst maintaining even the "woefully low" number of operational vessels currently available and the skilled workforce to renew them. Plans to modernise Royal Navy escort fleet The report examines the MoD's plans to modernise the Royal Navy's escort fleet, including the introduction of two new classes of frigate—the Type 26 Global Combat Ship and the Type 31 General Purpose Frigate—and the enforced refit of the...

THE Royal Navy has been allowed to shrink to a “dangerous and historic low” leaving it unable to combat global threats, MPs will warn today. A Defence Select Committee report says Britain will one day be unable to defend its shores unless it increases its “pathetic” fleet of 19 frigates and destroyers. Only 17 frigates are usable and the MoD is still negotiating on designs and contracts over the construction of replacement vessels IMAGE: ROYAL NAVY Only 17 are usable and the MoD is still negotiating on designs and contracts over the construction of replacement vessels. A Defence Select Committee...

Royal Navy warships will be left without anti-ship missiles and be forced to rely on naval guns because of cost-cutting, the Ministry of Defence has admitted. The Navy’s Harpoon missiles will retire from the fleet’s frigates and destroyers in 2018 without a replacement, while there will also be a two year gap without helicopter-launched anti-shipping missiles. Naval sources said the decision was “like Nelson deciding to get rid of his cannons and go back to muskets” and one senior former officer said warships would "no longer be able to go toe-to-toe with the Chinese or Russians". Harpoon missiles are unlikely...

Work to build eight 'sub hunter' combat ships will begin in the summer of next year, it has been announced. Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said the construction of the 'next generation' Type 26 Frigate will secure hundreds of jobs on the Clyde for two decades. They will also be armed with the Sea Ceptor anti-missile system under a £100million contract confirmed by the government. But the cutting-edge project has already been blighted by delays, with the original intention having been for work on 13 ships to start earlier this year. Speaking during a visit to the Govan area of...

According to newly released official stats, the six vessels clocked up 1,515 days in British docks in the year to this April. Four of the state-of-the-art ships remained berthed for more than 300 days each, the data obtained from a Freedom of Information request shows. Former head of the Navy Admiral Lord West said there was a "desperate need" to get the destroyers "out and doing their job". He said: "We are using Royal Fleet Auxiliary and offshore protection vessels to do jobs that historically would have been done with frigates or destroyers." The Ministry of Defence (MoD) insisted the...

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has confirmed that the US Marine Corps will be flying F-35Bs from HMS Queen Elizabeth on the aircraft's carrier's maiden operational deployment. He said: “I can welcome the commitment of the United States to deploying F-35s on the first operational deployment of Queen Elizabeth – the HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2021. And in the fullness of time, we expect our F-35s to be welcome on the American carriers.” Fallon confirmed the deployment while giving a joint press conference on Wednesday at London's Lancaster House with US Defence Secretary Ash Carter. "We value very much having such...

Britain used to boast the most powerful navy in the world. No more. That’s a serious problem for allies like the United States. Traditionally, Britain’s Royal Navy has been the U.S. Navy's closest partner. The two have fought together against most every foe. So any weakening of the Royal Navy also erodes Washington's naval power. Today, however, the Royal Navy is a shadow of its former self. Government budgeteers have repeatedly, and excessively, cut the numbers of its ships, planes and manpower. It can barely patrol the United Kingdom’s own waters, much less project British influence abroad. Though London officials...

"UNPRECEDENTED": HMS Duncan is one of the six powerful warships currently docked at Portsmouth Six £1billion Type 45 Destroyers - described as the backbone of Britain's marine defences - are not on operations, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. One senior Navy insider told how out was "almost unprecedented" that all the vessels should be docked. And the fact all six were in port at once could suggest "a gross lack of planning" or indicate "something more serious", the source warned Sky News. An insider revealed the ships had "just got back from operations, are about to go on operations...

The Royal Navy is suffering a recruitment crisis when it comes to staffing Trident submarines - as young people are too addicted to Facebook to go off-tech for weeks at a time. Following a vote to renew the nuclear submarines which passed through Parliament last week, those serving say that a scheme designed to attract new blood has faltered. And a senior source says this is down to the fact that "you cannot Facebook your friends". Last month, the annual report from the Ministry of Defences’s internal watchdog, the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator, warned of a shortfall of qualified engineers,...

A new fleet of frigates, described as “global combat ships” designed to play crucial roles, has been delayed indefinitely, the Ministry of Defence has said in testy exchanges with MPs over huge financial and technical problems facing the navy’s surface vessels. Delays in building the Type 26 frigates – a project promised by David Cameron before the 2014 Scottish independence referendum – is threatening shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde in Scotland. The project’s problems come on top of serious mechanical failures in the navy’s new fleet of Type 45 destroyers. Key tasks of the navy’s frigates and destroyers include protecting...

HMS Somerset escorted the brand-new Chinese frigate Xiangtan through the Dover Strait as the Far Eastern warship made for Germany. During the several hours in company together, the Brits provided the Xiangtan with a weather forecast to help them on their way to Kiel for that city’s annual maritime spectacular. Picture: LA(Phot) Guy Pool SO AS a Brit, what do you do when you encounter a stranger and need to pass the time? That’s right, you chat about the weather. HMS Somerset met up with brand-new Chinese warship Xiangtan and escorted the frigate through the Dover Strait as it headed...

Britain's £1bn ($1.4bn) warships are losing power in the Persian Gulf because they cannot cope with the warm waters, MPs have been told. Six Type 45 destroyers have repeatedly experienced power outages because of the temperatures, leaving servicemen in complete darkness.

The Royal Navy was, quite recently, one of the world’s leading fleets. But that was before several rounds of deep budget cuts, the most recent in 2010, that compelled the senior service to officially decommission some of its best ships. The escort force arguably suffered the most, declining to a modern low of just 13 Type 23 frigates and six new Type 45 destroyers. And now the escort force has shrunk even further.

Royal Navy's most advanced destroyers break down in the Gulf because the water is too WARM, bungling defence chiefs admit Britain's £1billion a piece Type-45 Destroyer ships break down in warm water and are being retrofitted with diesel generators, defence chiefs have admitted. Complicated Rolls Royce gas turbine engines work in the cold water around Britain but the vessels have been left adrift in the Gulf on several occasions because of failures. The problem first became apparent when HMS Daring lost all power in the mid-Atlantic in 2010 and had to repaired in Canada. The ship needed fixing again in...

Longer than the Houses of Parliament and able to launch up to 108 air strike sorties per day, Britain’s new aircraft carriers will make potential enemies “think twice” about starting future wars, their senior naval officer has said. The new Queen Elizabeth Class carriers will be become Britain’s most potent conventional weapon and change the way the Royal Navy does business, Capt Simon Petitt said. The two vast 67,000 tonne vessels, which have cost £6.2bn for the pair, are the largest warships ever built in Britain. The first of the ships to be ready, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is due to...

Now will we grasp that the United States is not our friend, but a foreign country whose interests are often different from ours? President Obama's blatant intervention in our internal affairs is not a sudden breach of a soppy 'special relationship'. The USA's only real special relationship is with Saudi Arabia, a 70-year old hard pact of oil, money and power, welded together with such cynicism it out to make up gasp. Barack Obama's open desire for us to stay inside the EU is by no means the first or worst example of White House meddling here in these islands....