Getting our warships and maritime weapons from overseas, as a reality, has been around for a long time. It’s tempting to imagine some halcyon era when we built everything ourselves and luxuriated in the security-of-supply and job creation implicit in doing so. In reality, this has rarely been the case.
As far back as the Tudor era we occasionally acquired ships from foreign shipyards, particularly in France, Spain and the Low Countries (modern-day Netherlands and Belgium) who were renowned for advanced shipbuilding techniques. In the 17th century we turned to Dutch expertise for certain specialised vessels and by the 18th and 19th we were making full use of our colonies. During the Napoleonic wars, most Royal Navy officers considered that captured French and Spanish ships were better than British-built ones – and there were certainly enough in the RN for them to know.
Likewise with weapons. In the 18th century the Swedes in particular, and the Dutch, both made excellent cannons which we used against all comers. In the Second World War half the fleet had Swedish Bofors guns and the Lend-Lease Act saw huge supplies of almost everything from the US. This has been followed by perhaps the meatiest weapons collaboration to date, the Trident D5 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile. There are many other examples: today’s Type 45 destroyers, though notionally British built, fire French-made missiles using a mostly French and Italian combat system which runs, of course, on American software.
In simplistic terms, when making these decisions there is a trade-off between organic control, security and UK jobs at one end of the spectrum vs the pace and cost benefits of buying ‘off the shelf’ at the other. The effectiveness of the ship or system should dominate the discussion but often doesn’t feature at all.
Problems occur, though, when the place on the spectrum is selected for political, not military, expedience. Here the debate gets emotional, particularly when Ministers and Admirals want different things, which of course they often do. The prospect of manufacturing jobs in Britain now, often regardless of how few and short-lived they may be, generally overrides any considerations of cost, capability and delay.
In the US this tension also exists even though in recent history they have often had the infrastructure, industrial capacity and money to go it alone. When they have imported a design, such as the much loved Knox class (based on the Italian Lupo) and now the Constellation class (based on the French and Italian Fregate Europeenne Multi-Mission – FREMM – design), they have always built it in the US.
Getting our warships and maritime weapons from overseas, as a reality, has been around for a long time. It’s tempting to imagine some halcyon era when we built everything ourselves and luxuriated in the security-of-supply and job creation implicit in doing so. In reality, this has rarely been the case.
As far back as the Tudor era we occasionally acquired ships from foreign shipyards, particularly in France, Spain and the Low Countries (modern-day Netherlands and Belgium) who were renowned for advanced shipbuilding techniques. In the 17th century we turned to Dutch expertise for certain specialised vessels and by the 18th and 19th we were making full use of our colonies. During the Napoleonic wars, most Royal Navy officers considered that captured French and Spanish ships were better than British-built ones – and there were certainly enough in the RN for them to know.
Likewise with weapons. In the 18th century the Swedes in particular, and the Dutch, both made excellent cannons which we used against all comers. In the Second World War half the fleet had Swedish Bofors guns and the Lend-Lease Act saw huge supplies of almost everything from the US. This has been followed by perhaps the meatiest weapons collaboration to date, the Trident D5 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile. There are many other examples: today’s Type 45 destroyers, though notionally British built, fire French-made missiles using a mostly French and Italian combat system which runs, of course, on American software.
In simplistic terms, when making these decisions there is a trade-off between organic control, security and UK jobs at one end of the spectrum vs the pace and cost benefits of buying ‘off the shelf’ at the other. The effectiveness of the ship or system should dominate the discussion but often doesn’t feature at all.
Problems occur, though, when the place on the spectrum is selected for political, not military, expedience. Here the debate gets emotional, particularly when Ministers and Admirals want different things, which of course they often do. The prospect of manufacturing jobs in Britain now, often regardless of how few and short-lived they may be, generally overrides any considerations of cost, capability and delay.
In the US this tension also exists even though in recent history they have often had the infrastructure, industrial capacity and money to go it alone. When they have imported a design, such as the much loved Knox class (based on the Italian Lupo) and now the Constellation class (based on the French and Italian Fregate Europeenne Multi-Mission – FREMM – design), they have always built it in the US.