UK Announces Retirement of Watchkeeper UAV, 14 Chinooks, 17 Pumas and 3 Royal Navy Ships
Defence Secretary John Healey announced in Parliament that several ‘outdated’ capabilities will be withdrawn from service to address a defence budget ‘black hole’
The entire British Army Watchkeeper UAV fleet will be axed from service, alongside the Royal Air Force’s Puma helicopters and fourteen of the oldest Chinooks in service. The Royal Navy will see its two amphibious assault ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, retired alongside the Type 23 frigate HMS Northumberland. RFA Wave Knight and RFA Wave Ruler will leave Royal Fleet Auxiliary service.
Secretary of State for Defence Rt Hon John Healey MP announced the decisions to the House of Commons on Nov 20, stating that they were overdue decisions that were made to free up money for ongoing and future procurements. Speaking to fellow Members of Parliament, he said “To ensure that Britain is kept secure at home and strong abroad in a changing world, defence needs to make changes too. Difficult decisions are required.”.
These cuts come ahead of a Strategic Defence Review, which is expected to be released in 2025. Those who are conducting the review were consulted and informed about the Secretary of State’s decision, as were senior members of the armed forces.
Many of these retirements are somewhat unsurprising for those who follow the UK’s military affairs. Indeed, the retirement of the fourteen oldest Chinooks in the RAF has been expected for some time ahead of the eventual delivery of fourteen new-build replacements. The specific airframes to be withdrawn, currently designated Chinook HC6A, have been in RAF service since the 1980s.
The remaining Puma HC2s in UK service will be retired from the RAF by March 2025. Unfortunately, the Puma’s replacement program has faced troubles for many years and is unlikely to see new helicopters enter service until at least the end of this decade. A small number of Airbus H145 helicopters were ordered to replace Pumas which had been deployed as an interim measure to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus after the withdrawal of the Griffin HAR2.
Perhaps the most surprising news to come of this announcement is the complete retirement of the Thales Watchkeeper from the British Army. The Watchkeeper is an unmanned aerial vehicle based on the Elbit Hermes 450. The Watchkeeper was procured in the early 2000s in response to operational requirements in the Middle East, but the first UK flight of the drone did not take place until 2010. Full operational capability was declared in 2018, though not before a number of aircraft were deployed to Afghanistan.
Watchkeeper’s journey into service and through service have been troubled, with a number of aircraft lost in crashes. Fleet wide groundings and intense scrutiny followed, with critics accusing it of suffering from spiraling costs while providing little in the way of reliable capability. Nonetheless, the British Army persevered with the platform and most recently has deployed it on a number of overseas exercises including to the United States, Estonia, and RAF Akrotiri.
These VALKYR Watchkeeper flights out of Fort Bliss started Feb 17, flying from the UAS airfield at Training Area 4D. Watchkeepers I have tracked as part of this US-UK exercise:
VALKYR35 WK035 #43C879
VALKYR39 WK039 #43C87D
VALKYR45 WK045 #43C883Today, WK039 is participating. https://t.co/SB9o2RMJfY pic.twitter.com/hLbECkdwY2
— Amelia Smith (@ameliairheart) March 14, 2023
Royal Navy Cuts
The headline cut in this announcement is the loss of the Albion class amphibious assault ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. These ships have been in Royal Navy service since the early 2000s.
The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, most well known for heralding the withdrawal of the Harrier, Nimrod, and HMS Ark Royal from UK service, stipulated that only one Albion class would be fielded at any one time with the other kept in reserve. HMS Bulwark operated as the sole active ship from 2011 to 2017, and HMS Albion from 2017 to 2023. Most recently neither ship has been active, as HMS Albion entered her reserve period before HMS Bulwark was ready to re-enter service. Both ships therefore have been laid up at HMNB Devonport for over a year.
Defence chiefs have considered the early retirement of these ships since at least the mid-2010s but were vetoed by the contemporary governments. Their primary argument was that the cost of these vessels is best placed instead on operating and supporting the Queen Elizabeth class carriers.
Although it is a significant blow to the Royal Navy’s theoretical amphibious capability, the reality of both ships having been long inactive means the hit to actual capability is minimal. The place of traditional amphibious assaults in modern warfare has been questioned in some corners of the defence world. Notably, neither Bulwark or Albion has ever been involved with such an operation in their twenty years of service.
The Royal Navy will maintain the capability to operate landing craft through the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s three Bay class ships. While these ships have smaller well decks, able to hold only one LCU Mk10 compared to the four that can fit in the Albion class, they are more flexible ships with a reduced operational cost and crew burden. Smaller LCVP Mk5 landing craft can additionally be carried on the decks of these ships, as well as RFA Argus, and lowered into the water by crane.
Although not good news, all five ships to be axed have already been inactive for some time and this does not actually weaken the frontline strength of the RN right now any further.
In some ways, this announcement is simply about being honest that ships officially listed as… pic.twitter.com/DphUYXGI0b
— Navy Lookout (@NavyLookout) November 20, 2024
The Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers have also been designed to have a secondary role in supporting amphibious assault operations, with the capability to field a significant number of helicopters. One of the shortfalls of the Albion class in service has been their complete lack of hangar space, reducing their overall versatility.
Both ships will be decommissioned by March 2025 with a long term goal to replace their capability with the Multi-Role Support Ship program, which is likely to deliver a more modern and flexible design that can cover the roles of the Albion class, Bay class, and Argus with a single type of vessel.
Another cut, Type 23 frigate HMS Northumberland has been worked hard in recent years while other ships of the class have been undergoing life-extension refits. The ship’s experience at sea in 2020 shadowing a Russian submarine before being hit by COVID-19 was chronicled by a TV series. Since then, Northumberland has routinely spent significant parts of the year at sea and this high operational tempo has taken its toll on her material state. Now beyond reasonable repair, the ship will be retired in March 2025 after 31 years in the Royal Navy.
The slimming down of the Type 23 fleet as they reach the end of their economical lives is planned to be countered by the entry into service of eight Type 26s and at least five Type 31s in the coming years.
Replenishment tankers RFA Wave Knight and RFA Wave Ruler are the last of the cuts to come from this announcement. Again, as with the Albion class, these ships have been inactive for some time and do not represent much of a real terms cut to capability. Both ships have been in reserve since 2022. Their decommissioning and sale was floated last year, though quickly quashed by the then Conservative government.
The Wave class has a serious downside in that they are not compatible with the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. While they could support other operations, like frigates and destroyers operating on FOST or deployments to the Middle East, the RFA is not as short on tankers as it is on solid stores ships. Four brand new Tide class tankers were delivered in the late 2010s which offer a much greater capability, and were designed specifically for supporting carrier operations. Meanwhile, the only significant ammunition and solid supply replenishment capability lies with RFA Fort Victoria. Fort Victoria is also presently in reserve while the RFA suffers from a debilitating crew shortage. If the money saved from the maintenance of these inactive ships offers the possibility of fielding a greater number of the ships that remain active, it would seem to be a worthy compromise.