And the few remaining surface vessels don’t pack much of a punch; the Royal Navy recently announced that its inventory of Harpoon anti-ship missiles has reached the end of their service life and will be retired in 2018. Replacements for the Harpoon should be available around 2028; until then, RN frigates and destroyers will have to rely on their 5-inch deck guns or anti-ship missiles launched from helicopters to attack surface targets outside of gun range. And the chopper-mounted missiles won’t be ready until 2020-2021 at the earliest.
In the interim, the RN will have to look for foes who want to re-fight the Battle of Jutland, pair their destroyers and frigates with US strike groups (which will retain an anti-ship missile capability), or pair them with the new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, which can strike long-range targets with their embarked F-35s.
As I posted on another forum last week, here are RN surface engagement tactics, circa 2018:
1) Form battle line
2) Engage with main gun
3) Maneuver to suck enemy into CIWS range
4) Distribute small arms, cutlasses and prepare to board
Maybe they should sink their navy and make something useful...a reef.
“here are RN surface engagement tactics, circa 2018:”
Nice!
Only now they lack the ships to make those tactics work.