Earlier this month, the UK Ministry of Defence finally confirmed what had long been expected — that the Royal Navy’s last two amphibious assault ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, will be sold to a foreign customer (specifically, the Brazilian Navy). These “Landing Platform Docks” (LPDs) — with their large floodable loading bays, troop and vehicular transport capacity, command and control (C2) suites, and sizeable flight decks — have provided the backbone of the UK’s amphibious lift capability since their introduction in 2001, when they replaced their venerable Fearless-class predecessors that proved so valuable during the Falklands War.
In following the RN’s amphibious assault helicopter carrier, HMS Ocean — itself sold in 2018 — into Brazilian service, this move completes a dramatic reduction in UK amphibious capability over the past 15 years: the fleet has fallen from one Landing Platform Helicopter (Ocean), two LPDs (Albion and Bulwark), and four Bay-class auxiliary landing ships to merely three of the latter. Furthermore, these remaining three auxiliaries — while undeniably useful — are also not built to the same standards of survivability as proper RN warships, and are therefore riskier to send into harm’s way.
Optimal jam tomorrow…?
Such sales are consistent with a long-running trend: UK military posture throughout the post-Cold War era has been a recurring tale of sacrificing current capabilities in hope of a better future force. “Better” has often been understood as a qualitative upgrade (i.e. superior technology) — although the 2015 Defence Review, itself already a decade old, pledged that there would eventually be quantitative uplifts too (e.g. in the Royal Navy’s frigate fleet). In the LPDs’ case, the promise is for their role — along with that of various other serving or recently retired vessels — to be taken over by “up to” six Multi-Role Strike Ships (the “strike” reportedly reflecting their enhanced offensive potential) sometime in the 2030s. In short, the UK will do without a current capability for (maybe) a decade in hope of an adequate number of better ships arriving in future.
In many ways, the sale makes sense. First, Albion and Bulwark are ageing, meaning that this might have been the last point at which they could attract a worthwhile sale price, while their associated maintenance burden will only grow. Second, given their relatively large crews, they had placed a heavy manning load on a Navy that has been left struggling with personnel numbers by years of recruitment and retention problems. The unfortunate reality — given the previous two points — is that neither ship has recently been operational (one is emerging from a refit and the other is laid up in “extended readiness”); indeed, it was not clear that the RN could fully man them given the need to also crew higher-priority platforms, such as the aircraft carriers and anti-submarine frigates.
Furthermore, LPDs are also now of contested strategic relevance, because amphibious assaults — especially at close enough range to support a beach landing in small boats — look an ever-more-challenging prospect in an era of increasingly advanced and pervasive anti-ship weaponry. Correspondingly, the Royal Marines — the amphibious infantry that the LPDs were primarily expected to support — have configured away from brigade-scale amphibious assault to a concept of smaller-scale seaborne raiding, which may not require such large and specialised assault ships. So, if the RN ever wants to see those hoped-for increases in frigates, autonomous systems, weapons types/holdings, or indeed, the Multi-Role Strike Ships that are intended to take over amphibious (and various other) missions, the Ministry of Defence has judged that two costly ships configured for a decreasingly-plausible core task have to go.
…or extant jam today?
Unfortunately, however, such “jam tomorrow” trade-offs could yet bite the UK in the posterior — especially in an era of intensifying great-power threats and dubious alliance commitments from the United States. The UK and its (non-US) NATO allies could yet find themselves facing various possible amphibious contingencies — from the Baltic, to Norway/Svalbard, to the Falklands, to even (conceivably) outlying Scottish islands — in which such vessels would be invaluable. Opposed beach assaults (never an easy task) may indeed be getting harder, but such vessels can support amphibious operations in other vital ways – by bringing reinforcing troops and equipment into a besieged ally, for example — and unfortunately, even “harder” doesn’t always mean “avoidable”.
Additionally, two large warships with sizeable flight decks, floodable docks to support smaller vessels (e.g. the many now-proliferating autonomous naval systems), and extensive command-and-control facilities could be — and have been — turned to other valuable uses. Beyond the obvious, such as disaster relief and maritime security functions, such vessels — if modestly upgraded with better air defence weapons, anti-ship/land-attack missiles, and aviation support facilities all already in UK service — could have served as useful “assault cruisers”, combining amphibious capability with relevance to broader naval missions, along the lines of France’s Jeanne d’Arc or the RN’s Tiger-class cruisers.
Such a choice could have given the RN useful extra jam today, but potentially at a cost of a less-juicy sandwich tomorrow. Still, the choice has been made, and so now the RN — and the citizenry it exists to protect — must hope the cuts borne in the present are offset by a superior fleet in future … and that that superior fleet arrives before future risks turn into present dangers.
