The early cuts, announced in Parliament by the Defence Secretary John Healey, came as an unpleasant although not entirely unexpected surprise, especially since the formal Strategic Defence Review process is still months away from completion, expected in Spring.

As customary in British shock defence announcements, the words of the Secretary contain only part of the truth and there is more beneath the surface. One of the most dramatic cuts just announced is the early decommissioning, formally in March 2025, of the 2 LPDs and ex-Fleet Flagships, HMS BULWARK and HMS ALBION.

According to the Secretary, these ships were “never going to go back to sea again” before their end of life in 2033/34 and have been in mothball since 2017 and 2023 respectively. This is only partially true. Royal Navy observers will know that combined financial and manpower issues have seen the Royal Navy forced to operate only 1 LPD at a time for the whole of the past decade plus. The plan to rotate the 2 LPDs in and out of extended readiness was announced all the way back in the SDSR 2010 and saw HMS ALBION being the first to enter “extended readiness” (officially a R11 status, meaning “24 months notice to move”) in 2012. In that state she was docked and preserved, with a tiny skeletal crew and the necessary support to keep her systems functional. She was used as a training station, including for landing craft manoeuvres by keeping one of her davit cranes in use, and was then refitted and regenerated to return into service in 2017, when HMS BULWARK took her place in R11 status. The refit was extensive and included the replacement of her original GOALKEEPER CIWS with PHALANX. So, yes. HMS BULWARK was in mothball since 2017, but with a larger skeleton crew than ALBION had had before and in a “warmer” state. She was supposed to regenerate and return to service in late 2023 when HMS ALBION returned to port at the end of her roughly 5-years tenure at high readiness. While manpower and financial issues have prevented the swap from completing, those who worked on BULWARK and the ex-Defence ministers don’t agree with the affirmation that “she was never going to sea again”. She is, materially, in the regeneration phase of her refit and could have been put back to sea relatively quickly in an emergency or when manpower to complete the expansion of the skeletal crew could be found. Healey felt that the circa 9 million a year spent to maintain the ships was “waste”.

BULWARK material state is good; she is at the end of an extensive refit and modernisation and will thus quite likely find someone willing to purchase her. ALBION, conversely, is at the end of 5 years of intensive use and in need of her own refit: this might make her a bit less attractive to customers, but the MOD is probably all too willing to offer both at a very convenient price. The ALBION-class LPDs are the result of compromises, the most notable of which is the deletion from the design of an aviation hangar and are relatively manpower-intensive vessels for modern day Royal Navy standards, which means the Senior Service is eager to move on to the new Multi Role Support Ships, which the Secretary says will happen and indeed will be “accelerated”. With none of the “up to 6” ships (to replace the 2 ALBIONs and then the 3 BAYs and RFA ARGUS) yet on contract (the project is in its assessment phase, launched in the last few months of the previous Parliament) and with their delivery years away even in the most optimistic of cases, it feels like Royal Navy and Royal Marines are putting a lot of faith on the Secretary not reneging his pledge later on down the SDSR’s path to publication. History suggests they might well end up regretting this.

Similarly, the WAVE-class tankers, WAVE RULER and WAVE KNIGHT, have been preserved in good material state but have no longer sortied to sea since 2018 due to the ever-worsening manpower situation in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Both relatively young and double-hulled, compliant with modern regulations, they are also quite likely to find someone to purchase them. The Type 23 HMS NORTHUMBERLAND will also be decommissioned early. The ship is in dock for refit, but her hull has been found to be in particularly bad conditions and the expense and time needed to repair her are considered unacceptable. This is a conclusion already reached earlier for WESTMINSTER and ARGYLL, but unless the fitting out of the new Type 26s and Type 31s can be accelerated, the constant shrinking of the frigate fleet will soon be catastrophic.

The fleet is now down to just 8 Type 23s which could shrink further to 7 if HMS LANCASTER decommissions next year as from original plans. Very significantly, WESTMINSTER and NORTHUMBERLAND are 2 of the 8 ASW frigates with Type 2087 towed sonar, which has led to unsurprising speculation that one of the now “spare” sonar sets could find its way on HMS IRON DUKE, a “general purpose” T23. The Type 23s very originally conceived as cheap frigates with an 18-years intended service life, but due to endless dithering in the 2000s before starting the procurement of new frigates they are having to live on in their 30s.

In terms of helicopters, Healey decided the 17 remaining PUMA HC2 helicopters will be withdrawn in March 2025 as their support contract with Airbus expires. A slight extension, to 2028, had been in the plans to bridge the gap towards the hoped-for fielding of the New Medium Helicopter. The previous government also ordered 6 Airbus H-145 helicopters, now in delivery, to replace the PUMA permanent detachments in Cyprus (84 Sqn) and Brunei. The impact of not extending PUMA will only be fully understood when the fate of the NMH project will be clear. Healey for now had nothing more to say than “the process continues”. The process being a “competition” which is down to the sole Leonardo AW-149 after the withdrawal of Airbus and Lockheed Martin over concerns about a budget (around 1,2 billion) felt as insufficient, especially in the face of demands to have much of the production happen in the UK. Healey also said the H-145s are only expected to reach Brunei and Cyprus in 2026, which might require circa 1 year of contractor services or the deployment of some other helicopter from the military inventory, which however appears challenging at best. The realistic options are MERLIN HC4, which however would be significantly expensive, or existing H-145 JUPITER which however would come from the rotary wing training fleet, with an adverse impact on the preparation of new crews.

14 of the oldest CHINOOKs in service will be removed over the next 4 years as they reach their maintenance periods. All of these are HC6A helicopters which, while extensively modernized, date back to the 80s and have all long passed the 11,000 flying hours mark. It was already planned under the previous government that 14 of the existing CHINOOKs would eventually bow out to be replaced, beginning in 2026/27, with the 14 new H-47ER Block II on order. 9 other HC6A are being withdrawn without replacement (beginning with the legendary Bravo November of Falklands fame that became a museum piece months ago) reducing the prospective fleet from 60 to 51. This only accelerates the removal of the old machines.

The CHINOOK matter is however far from over settled because in order to maintain the fleet at the 51-mark solutions will have to be defined in the near future for the replacement of the other 15 old HC6A that remain. The purchase of the 14 ER is in fact also known as Capability Sustainment Project Phase 1; a Phase 2 is supposed to follow with decisions due this Parliament. The rest of the fleet is composed of 8 much younger HC5 (also with the “fat cheeks” large fuel tanks) and 14 HC6.

Finally, 47 Royal Artillery Regiment has been hit with the surprise announcement that its equipment, the WATCHKEEPER drone, is also going out of service in March 2025. WATCHKEEPER, first launched under the previous Labour era at the beginning of the 2000s, has been highly controversial for all its life. Based on the successful Israeli HERMES 450 and maintaining its dimensions, WATCHKEEPER added a SAR/GMTI radar payload, all-weather capability and the ability to be flown in UK airspace.

Those were extremely ambitious demands for such a compact form factor and for the early 2000s, and unsurprisingly WATCHKEEPER only ended up deploying for the first time in 2014, covering the last few months of operation HERRICK. Flown in support of migrant boats traffic in the Channel and deployed for the first time in Estonia in the past few months, WATCHKEEPER had just received some additional radar upgrades and modes (including for maritime search, upgrade 2.3) and had demonstrated lasing targets for APACHE gunships in October 2023 on a training deployment to Oman. 7 of the original 54 drones have been lost in crashes, however, and the Royal Artillery has met the implacable hostility of both the Royal Air Force and the Army Air Corps who felt they should have say and ownership over a system of this kind.

Healey says the Army will replace WATCHKEEPER with “something better” but in truth the Regiment knew nothing until the announcement was televised and there are no established plans for a replacement.

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