Defence in microcosm: the future of the Royal Marines

The decision to retire the Albion-class amphibious assault ships raises questions about the role of the Royal Marines and the way the SDR team is working

Defence Programme Developments, 20 November 2024

Yesterday’s announcement by the Defence Secretary, John Healey, of various cuts to the armed forces was presented as logical, “common-sense decisions” which will save £500 million over the next five years and rationalises a number of equipment programmes. He talked about “decommissioning decisions” which will “secure better value for money for the taxpayer and better outcomes for the military”. I said in The Spectator that there were a number of flaws in Healey’s plan, principally that the cuts give the impression of being driven by cost saving rather than any coherent sense of what the armed forces should look like in the future, in terms of capabilities and force structure. This is demonstrated acutely by decisions which affect the Royal Marines.

One of Healey’s announcements was that the Royal Navy’s two Albion-class amphibious assault ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, will be retired by March 2025. The vessels, known in naval parlance as “landing ship docks”, are designed to transport, deploy and recover Royal Marines units and their equipment and vehicles as part of an amphibious assault. That means they are not reliant on existing port facilities; instead, each ship can accommodate four Landing Craft Utility Mk 10s, roll-on roll-off vessels which can carry up to 120 soldiers, one main battle tank or four lorries; and four Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel Mk 5s, which can accommodate 35 troops or two light trucks. Between them, the four LCVP Mk 5s can put ashore a full company of Royal Marines, around 140-strong. Both also have a flight deck which can accommodate two helicopters, though they do not have hangar facilities. In addition, Albion and Bulwark can act as afloat command platforms for the commanders of an amphibious task force (the ships) and a landing force (the soldiers).

The Royal Marines and Littoral Response Groups

In terms of concept and doctrine, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark are intended to form the nucleus of a Littoral Response Group (LRG), part of the wider Future Commando Force modernisation of the Royal Marines. This concept was set out in the Defence Command Paper Defence in a competitive age, published in March 2021 as the military element of the wider Integrated Review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, Global Britain in a Competitive Age. It envisioned a “special operations-capable force [that] will operate alongside our allies and partners in areas of UK interest, ready to strike from the sea, pre-empt and deter sub-threshold activity, and counter state threats”, and to achieve a high level of readiness, two Littoral Response Groups would be permanently deployed, one in the Euro-Atlantic area and another in the Indo-Pacific.

The infantry component of the LRGs is provided by two of the Royal Marines’ six commando units, 40 Commando, based at RM Norton Manor in Somerset, and 45 Commando, based at RM Condor near Arbroath. These are battalion-sized units of around 500 personnel, sub-divided into six companies each. (The other four commando units are 42 Commando, a maritime security unit; 43 Commando Fleet Protection Group, which guards the nuclear weapons at HM Naval Base Clyde; 30 Commando Informationa Exploitation Group, which carries out intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) functions; and 47 Commando (Raiding Group), which specialises in amphibious assault and raiding and small boat operations.)

An LRG is intended to consist of an Albion-class landing platform dock, a Littoral Strike Unit made up of a company from 40 or 45 Commando and supporting personnel from other parts of the UK Commando Force, a Bay-class landing ship dock, of which three are currently in service, and a Type 45 destroyer as an escort. However, in July 2022 it was announced that the Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ship RFA Argus, initially scheduled to retire this year, has also been converted for the littoral strike role alongside the Bay-class landing ships.

The LRGs represent a shift in focus for the Royal Marines towards small-scale raiding missions, precision strikes and demonstrations of force in the so-called “grey zone”, in which nations and non-state actors engage in hostile competition below the threshold of conventional war. Although it is widely accepted that this change in role and doctrine was partly driven by budgetary considerations, with the overall strength of the Royal Marines being reduced from 6,500 to 6,100, it also reflects the fact that modern warfare is more varied and requires greater flexibility and autonomy, while traditional large-scale amphibious assault is increasingly vulnerable to missiles.

LRG (North), based in Europe, was first deployed in March 2021 on a three-month mission in the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. During this period, it took part in Exercise Ragnar Viking, working with the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Readiness Group, Exercise Strike Warrior with the UK Carrier Strike Group, and NATO’s annual BALTOPS exercise. It comprised HMS Albion, RFA Mounts Bay and HMS Lancaster, a Type 23 frigate, with personnel from 45 and 30 Commando. In September 2022, HMS Lancaster was replaced by Type 45 destroyer HMS Defender, and RFA Argus and tanker RFA Tidesurge were added to the group as it deployed to the Mediterranean, continuing to refine the LRG concept and contributing to NATO’s security presence in the region. In March 2023, Camp Viking was established near Tromso in Norway to serve as a hub for the Royal Marines element of LRG (North), and in March this year it participated in Exercise Nordic Response, part of the larger Steadfast Defender 2024, NATO’s largest military exercise since the end of the Cold War.

LRG (South) was formed in September 2023, with RFA Argus and RFA Lyme Bay as its designated lead vessels, and Royal Marines from 40 Commando. It was deployed to the eastern Mediterranean in October as a show of support for Israel after the Hamas terrorist attacks that month. RFA Lyme Bay delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza in January 2024, after which, with RFA Argus and accompanied by Type 45 destroyer HMS Diamond, it passed through the Red Sea and travelled to the Kattupalli Shipyard in India for maintenance. In April, LRG (South) conducted exercises with the Indian Navy, then sailed to Australia in July for Exercise Predator’s Run, led by the Australian Army’s 1st Brigade and involving the US Navy, the US Marine Corps and the Republic of the Philippines Army. RFA Argus returned to the United Kingdom via Cape Town in September.

As John Healey noted in his statement to the House of Commons, both of the Albion-class amphibious assault ships are currently in “extended readiness”, meaning they are held in reserve and available for eventual deployment if needed but are uncrewed. HMS Bulwark has recently undergone an extensive refit but HMS Albion would have required a similar overhaul before being returned to active service. Healey characterised this situation as the vessels having been “effectively retired by previous Ministers but superficially kept on the books, at a cost of £9 million a year”, therefore presenting his decision to retire them in four months’ time as little more than tidying up. This is a little disingenuous.

The intention as of May this year was for HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark to be kept in extended readiness until 2033/34, when they were to be replaced by the projected six Multi-Role Support Ships (MRSS), which would also supersede RFA Argus and the three Bay-class vessels. The Royal Navy set out the requirements for the MRSS in July, and it was noted that, even before yesterday’s announcement, the procurement timeframe was challenging, with the first MRSS needed in service by 2031 when the Bay-class landing ships will be taken out of service. On paper it is accurate to say that the Littoral Response Groups are operating without the Albion-class ships: LRG (North) is currently based around RFA Mounts Bay while RFA Argus is the core of LRG (South), sometimes supported by RFA Lyme Bay.

However, it is clear that there is a significant and substantive difference between the availability of ships, even ones in extended readiness, and their retirement from active service. Until the first MRSS comes into service, which at the most optimistic estimate will be early in the 2030s, there is no option to expand or reinforce the LRGs, no matter what the international security situation. The third Bay-class vessel, RFA Cardigan Bay, is currently awaiting refit at Falmouth, having spent several years at the United Kingdom Naval Support Facility (formerly HMS Jufair) in Bahrain as the support ship for Operation Kipion, the long-standing Royal Air Force and Royal Navy security mission in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. The future deployment of RFA Cardigan Bay is in question, however, because the Royal Fleet Auxiliary has been affected by industrial action since early this year because of a dispute over pay. These rolling strikes have had a serious impact on the RFA’s operational readiness and capability, which could have implications for both Littoral Response Groups in the absence of HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, which are both Royal Navy vessels rather than part of the RFA.

The future role of the Royal Marines

Even on the most optimistic reading of the situation, the loss of the two Albion-class amphibious assault ships takes away a contingency for the Littoral Response Groups. It is fair to be observe that it takes at least 18 months to bring a vessel out of extended readiness, assuming that financial resources and personnel are available, and when HMS Albion returned to Plymouth in July 2023, it was not seriously expected she would return to active service before her scheduled retirement in 2033. Equally, the LRGs have undertaken operations without the assault ships for the past year or so, relying on RFA Argus and the Bay-class vessels.

But even a rather threadbare safety net gives greater reassurance than no safety net at all. The Royal Navy is now completely reliant on the RFA for the next 7-10 years, until the MRSSs come into service, by which time the Bay-class will be approaching 30 years old, and RFA Argus (originally MV Contender Bezant) will celebrate 50 years since her launch in November 2030. Another consideration is that the Bay-class vessels do not have the same command and control capabilities as the Albion-class. One defence correspondent has highlighted the differences between the two types of ship.

Another factor to consider is that large-scale conventional amphibious assault is now vanishingly rare, at least in the United Kingdom’s experience. 3 Commando Brigade, commanded by Brigadier James Dutton, landed on the Al-Faw peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf during the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: 40 and 42 Commando were reinforced by the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit of the USMC and three US Navy SEAL teams and around 3,500 personnel in total were deployed to capture the gas and oil platforms on the peninsula as well as Iraq’s only deep-water port at Umm Qasr. That operation, however, was 3 Commando Brigade’s first amphibious landing in combat since May 1982’s Operation Sutton at San Carlos Water during the Falklands conflict. Two such operations in 42 years suggests that this is a capability which is unlikely to be required.

However, it is not unreasonable, given the government’s decision to retire HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, to revisit the question of the Royal Marines’ role in the future armed forces. In January 2018, the House of Commons Defence Committee published a report entitled Sunset for the Royal Marines? The Royal Marines and UK amphibious capability, prompted by suggestions that the Albion-class vessels might be under threat. At that point, the Landing Platform Helicopter HMS Ocean, in service since 1998 and the flagship of the Royal Navy since 2015, was in the process of being retired and sold to the Brazilian Navy (she was decommissioned in March 2018). The Defence Committee emphasised the importance of this aspect of the Royal Marines:

Wider global trends and the overall direction of UK foreign policy all point to the absolute necessity of retaining a meaningful amphibious capability that can project power far from its home base… the world is changing and the Royal Navy and Royal Marines need to change with it. However, if the price of such change is the sacrifice of this country’s amphibious capability, we can only conclude this to be a short-sighted, militarily illiterate manoeuvre totally at odds with strategic reality.

These were strong words but they reflected a genuine and pressing concern. In September 2018, the then-Secretary of State for Defence, Gavin Williamson, announced that HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark would not be retired early: “To deliver what seems impossible, the Royal Marines need to be able to bring the fight from the sea to the land,” he told an audience in Birmingham. In December that year, Williamson flagged the development of the Future Commando Force concept, setting out more detail in a speech at RUSI in February 2019.

It is certainly the case that the development of the Future Commando Force was driven in part by resource considerations, requiring a Royal Marines strength of around 4,000. Nevertheless, it was also a coherent and considered review of function, doctrine and equipment rather than a crude exercise in cutting costs. Additionally, it was not an isolated exercise: the United States’s 2018 National Defense Strategy, Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge, called for a “more lethal, resilient, and rapidly innovating Joint Force” to counter the threat of China and Russia at every level of conflict.

As its contribution to the strategy’s priorities, the US Marine Corps began a process called Force Design 2030 (since shortened to Force Design) restructure itself and prepare for a potential naval war with China. The initial iteration, released in March 2020 by General David H. Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps, set out the changes necessary for “effectively playing our role as the nation’s naval expeditionary force-in-readiness, while simultaneously modernizing the force in accordance with the National Defense Strategy”.

It acknowledged that this programme of transformation had to be carried out “within the fiscal resources we are provided”, and provided for a reduction in strength of the Marine Corps of 12,000 by 2030. It proposed cutting each infantry battalion by 200, reducing its fighter squadrons to 10 aircraft and to retire its fleet of main battle tanks entirely as “operationally unsuitable for our highest-priority challenges in the future. Heavy ground armor capability will continue to be provided by the US Army.” When the programme was first announced, the USMC had 452 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks in its inventory; by December 2020, 323 had been transferred to the US Army; and all of the Marine Corps’s tanks had been released by the end of 2021.

Again, the point is the Force Design (which has been highly controversial) was and is heavily influenced by available budget and resources, but at the same time, as with Future Commando Force, has been used as an opportunity to rethink the role of the service from the ground up. It is far from clear that the retirement of HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark has benefited from the same degree of consideration. The Shadow Defence Secretary, James Cartlidge, raised this question in the House of Commons.

What on earth does all this mean for the strategic defence review, from the MRSS to future drones for the British armed forces? The Secretary of State will no doubt say that I should wait for the SDR, so why did he not wait for the SDR before making today’s decisions?

The Defence Secretary’s response was evasive.

The hon. Gentleman also asked questions about… the future structure of our forces, and the capabilities we need. Those areas are being considered by the strategic defence review. As I said in my statement, I made today’s decisions in consultation with the reviewers, to make sure that they are aligned in their thinking, and in dialogue with NATO.

Later, in response to a question from the Liberal Democrat MP Richard Foord, a former army officer, he repeated:

I made these decisions in consultation with the strategic defence reviewers. It is not for them to back them or not. But if the hon. Gentleman asked them, I am sure they would say that these are entirely the right decisions, that they go in the right direction and that they start to make our forces more fit for the future. These decisions are consistent with the direction of our thinking, which is why I can confidently take them now, because we need to create the scope to move faster towards the future once the defence review reports.

Answering an inquiry from former Conservative defence minister Dr Andrew Murrison, Healey made the same claim.

On the Marines, I have said three times this afternoon that the future of its elite force, as part of the complex of what we need for the future, will be reinforced in the SDR. That is what I expect. The decisions that I have announced today are consistent with the SDR. He wrongly suggested that somehow these announcements make a mockery of it, but they are entirely consistent and are taken in consultation with the reviewers.

There is a fundamental issue at stake here. I have said on a number of occasions that I think the terms of reference laid down for the Strategic Defence Review are too narrow and prescriptive, placing excessive limits on what the reviewers can examine and recommend. However, Healey has been at best disingenuous: nowhere in the terms of reference is “the future of [the Royal Marines’] elite force” protected, and indeed the reviewers are specifically tasked with considering “major features of the force structure needed to create the necessary integrated multi-domain Defence capability of the future”.

What does it mean when the Defence Secretary says he was careful to “make sure” the reviewers were “aligned in their thinking”, and how can he possibly know that the decisions announced “go in the right direction”? On what basis did he assure the House that the elite force of the Royal Marines “will be reinforced in the SDR”? Have the reviewers privately informed him of their likely recommendations already, or is more guidance than was contained in the terms of reference being applied to the review team? It was, after all, the Ministry of Defence which made such play of the SDR’s independence, stressing that it would “be Britain’s review—not just the Government’s” and that the “three external Reviewers” represented a “first-of-its-kind for UK defence”. This was not an approach forced on ministers, but one willingly adopted.

Conclusion

In practice, it may be that the effect of this week’s announcement of equipment cuts on the Royal Marines is small. Indeed, given the alternative, we should all hope that it is. The future of the Multi-Role Support Ship programme in the light of the SDR’s conclusions will be critical; the previous government indicated it would procure up to six vessels, thereby providing a more or less like-for-like replacement for the two Albion-class ships, RFA Argus and the three Bay-class ships. Any diminution of this commitment would necessarily reopen the issue of the role and capabilities of the Royal Marines.

What this episode has highlighted, however, is a lack of clarity about decision-making processes, and an unfortunate tendency of ministers, including Healey (for whom I have considerable regard in many ways), to wave away detailed scrutiny and hide behind vague assurances and linguistic evasions. This government is very far from the first to adopt such a defensive approach, but it is the incumbent administration and therefore must answer questions. Nothing the Defence Secretary has said dispels the impression that this week’s cuts of £500 million over five years have been determined with any significant regard to capabilities, missions or force structure. Equally, he has, no doubt inadvertently, chipped away further at the sense that Lord Robertson’s review team is entirely independent and untrammelled in its considerations. We must wait until the Strategic Defence Review is delivered to ministers in the first half of next year, of course, but at the moment it is hard to be too optimistic about its conclusions.