Posted on 12/14/2002 4:28:36 PM PST by MadIvan
The Royal Navy will dispatch a task force to the Gulf at the start of next month as Britain launches its military build-up to a war with Iraq.
The aircraft carrier Ark Royal will lead a six-vessel fleet that includes a destroyer, a frigate and a submarine. The ships will sail directly to the Middle East.
The deployment is the first British contribution to the military build-up in the region being assembled by the United States to confront Saddam Hussein.
An announcement on the sending of a ground force of about 20,000 British troops, led by a "light" armoured division, is expected within two weeks.
Senior military figures said yesterday that the naval task force would provide a vital part of Britain's contribution to a US-led war, which is expected in the spring.
One told The Telegraph: "This is really the guts of our naval commitments against Iraq. Ark Royal gives an obvious capacity and the destroyer and frigate will help guard all the ships in the region."
The ships are under preparation in Portsmouth, but will sail "imminently". Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces minister, said that the deployment demonstrated Britain's "continuing commitment to the security of the Gulf".
The fleet will include about 600 Royal Marines aboard Ark Royal, whose complement is 685 men and a further 366 aircrew.
The carrier has 16 Harriers and six helicopters. She will be guarded by Liverpool, a Type 42 destroyer, and Marlborough, a Duke Class frigate. All three will be supplied by two Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels, Fort Victoria and Orangeleaf.
Completing the fleet is an unnamed submarine. It is expected, as in the last Gulf war, to be equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The official line is that the fleet is heading for Exercise Flying Fish, an international training event to be held in Malaysian waters next June. "It is true that this has been planned for some time but it is a very convenient cover," said one senior official.
In total about 2,600 military personnel will sail within the next few weeks. A "passage exercise" with the Egyptian navy is planned but the task force is expected to divert to the Gulf, a fortnight's sailing from Britain.
The fleet is smaller than that committed during the last conflict, in 1991. Then Britain had 19 vessels in the Gulf, including two destroyers, two frigates, five minehunters and 10 support ships.
Nevertheless the dispatch of the Naval Task Group, led by Rear-Adml David Snelson, Commander of the UK Maritime Force, contrasts with delays in sending the armoured division. Ministers have been warned that transporting Challenger tanks, refitted for desert warfare, could take eight weeks.
It means the deployment must be announced within a fortnight if the troops are to be in place by late February, a preferred time for an offensive.
Senior military officials last night appeared to blame the US for the delays, insisting that the scale of Britain's contribution had yet to be agreed with the Pentagon.
I was wrong... pardon my faulty memory of a programme I watched some years ago and posting off the top of my head, but that wasn't the normal case. Apparently there was a picket system in place, but the Sheffield had no effective radar due to the fact that (unbelievably) her satellite comms equipment interfered with it. The excocet was indeed first spotted visually! Complete bungling.
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