Defence Review must put brakes on further integration with US armed forces

With ITN reporting that the Royal Navy’s “super carriers” will never sail simultaneously, it is becoming increasingly clear that this vanity project is holed below the waterline.

Defence experts pronounce that the aircraft carriers are relics of a bygone age. They are useless against terrorism or cyber warfare and vulnerable to attack by anti-ship missiles, eg the Zircon.

The UK Government talks of our global reach after we leave the European Union, but they are testimony to a national delusion.

There is much talk, after two years of sea trials, of the Carrier Strike Group setting sail. However, look carefully. The ships accompanying HMS Queen Elizabeth are US vessels as our largest warship ever is integrated with the US Navy with precious little public scrutiny or knowledge.

The UK has 18 of the eyewateringly expensive American F35b £100 million aircraft (we ordered 138!) with their myriad problems. The deck of our aircraft carrier has F35bs but they belong to the US Marine Corps.

A carrier strike group requires a Type 45 Daring Class destroyer. We were meant to have 12 but we could only build six due to the cost of the two white elephants. They break down in hot weather (the Darings combined have spent 649 days at sea in 2019. HMS Dauntless has not moved from Portsmouth Harbour since 2016).

The best-known is HMS Duncan, star of the Channel 5 documentary Warship: Life At Sea, which boosts naval recruitment. The Type-45 is an anti-aircraft and anti-missile platform with a traditional 4.5in naval gun.

The documentary brought home to the viewer the constant threats our ships are under in the Strait Of Hormuz in the Gulf. The threat has been exacerbated as we operate there with the US, not the eight EU navies in the vicinity.

The carrier group requires two anti-submarine Type-26 frigates but the first joins the fleet in 2025. It requires three RFA logistics ships but the order has been put back and the first one will be available in 2029. We simply cannot resource a UK Carrier Strike Group.

The forthcoming Defence Review must put a stop to any further integration by stealth with the US armed forces occurring as we are distracted by the pandemic. Recent international condemnation of the US makes that more pressing.

JOHN V LLOYD Keith Place, Inverkeithing