THE Royal Navy is struggling to keep itself ready for war because of cost-cutting pressures, a serving admiral and has warned.Former Commodore of Devonport Naval Base, Vice Admiral Simon Lister, said the Government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review had created a “state of flux”.
And he warned that “overall material readiness”, particularly in the surface fleet, “continues to decline despite the endeavours of hard pressed teams in the front line”.“Overall material readiness, especially in the surface flotilla, continues to decline despite the endeavours of hard pressed teams in the front line,” he wrote in an article for in-house magazine The Naval Engineer.“From the submarine perspective the numbers of force elements at readiness have been driven low by the late delivery of Astute and platform ageing.
“Operator technical knowledge in some capabilities is insufficient to exploit performance and on occasion actively reduces availability, and thus capability.“Our maintainers’ ability to assure available systems has been reduced by support solutions that are excessively reliant on industry and, in parallel, by reductions in career and targeted employment training.”One example, Vice Admiral Lister said, was the “lack of operators” trained to use Type 23 Frigate’s towed sonar – a device used to find submarines.
But the Chief Naval Engineer Officer said there were “many examples of excellence” including the 333-day deployment – the longest-ever by a British nuclear vessel – by Devonport-based hunter-killed submarine HMS Trenchant in 2012-13.He added: “Nevertheless, the price of unrelenting operational tempo and high utilisation is reduced contingency and unsustainable pressure on engineers in the frontline as every slim opportunity for maintenance is squeezed out of busy programmes.”
The Vice Admiral, who joined the Navy in 1978, has been charged with developing future Naval engineering strategy.While there was an “exciting equipment programme” ahead, he said, with new aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines in development, “people should be considered as our centre of gravity”.But, he said: “The state of flux created by the Strategic Defence and Security Review, reductions and broader restructuring across branches has created pinch points, increased churn and outflow, especially in key senior rate cadres in the engineer and warfare branches.
“This, coupled with reduced training investment and increasing transfer of engineering responsibility to industry, has reduced confidence, whilst increased tempo has reduced capacity for risk.”
He concluded: “We have high calibre, motivated and skilled people but the way in which we have driven for affordability has generated incoherence between the equipment programme, the support solution and our personnel and training programmes.“This is, to some extent, inevitable given the lag that exists between the imperative of strategic choices made attempting to match budgets to aspirations and the ability to achieve affordable and sustainable change.
“But the impact is a frontline struggling to sustain the materiel corrreadiness required by our tasking and commitment. “Our current position is unsustainable in the context of the Future Navy Vision, threatens our reputation for excellence, and requires us to act, now.”A Royal Navy spokesman said: “The admiral is merely pointing out the obvious facts that given the shortage of engineers across the maritime industry, and a growing economy, it is a challenge to recruit and retain these skilled personnel.
“We are offering financial incentives and excellent training and development opportunities to ensure we can compete with the private sector.“It is inevitable that there may be some temporary gaps across the fleet but we continually monitor the situation to ensure there is no operational impact.”
Read more: http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Navy-struggling-stay-ready-war-warns-Vice-Admiral/story-21140412-detail/story.html#ixzz32ob6HvXo
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