UK Navy Status

After writing an article about the Russian Navy traversing the English Channel three days ago:

Russia testing UK and EU

I spent some time looking into the current status of the UK Navy, and it seems it is much worse than even I wrote about. Heres a Youtube Short for the TLDR.

YT - Britian has 0 Ships to Defend itself

Heres a table of the active ships in the UK Navy and their status (as best can be determined).

Aircraft Carriers:

Destroyers:

Frigates:

Source - UK Navy

Cruising Earth - Ship movement

Submarines:

The positions and states of these are much harder to really determine. So lets assume the following:

6 operational Astute Class Attack Submarines

4 operational Vanguard Class Nuclear standoff Submarines

There are likely more than this. But surface vessels are the main concern for this topic.

Summaries

With the information from the AIS tracking there are apparently up to 33 active Royal Navy vessels.

However, of these vessels there are only 10 frigates, 7 destroyers and 2 aircraft carriers. Of these vessels, It appears around 2 or 4 frigates (dep on how you look at the missing ones) not really operational, the two aircraft carriers it seems 1 is operational the other with tugs helping. Of the destroyers though 3 of them are moored at Portsmouth - these might be in repair, or simply going through the normal maintenance cycle.

What is astonishing though, if you look at overall “naval power” often mentioned in news articles stating the UK Navy has 70 vessels in total with supposedly 63 vessels in service. Note these include the auxilliary vessels, which then skews the numbers a little since 13 vessels are in the RFA.

UK Parliment Summaries 2025

Thus the reported number of vessels in service should be upwards of 50 vessels and looking at the information, we can fairly reliably come to the conclusion that there is a little over half of that actually in service, and a smaller portion again that are seaworthy, mannable and ready for deployment. Yes.. potentially less than 20 ships.

The UK at its height had up to 1000 sea going vessels, and has been reduced to this. No wonder UK power and projection across the world is now a tiny shadow of its original form.

What I hope, is that the UK is realising this and rectifying to protect and help their overseas interests and allies, but all indicators show the opposite is happening:

NavyOutlook - Defence funding chaos

And…

Naval Technology - NATO extimated UK spending is now below alliance average

Any wonder the US is condering exiting NATO?

Sadly the UK government has been shown, time and time again by report after report that they needed to rectify their spending and increase production of vessels. It just hasnt happened. The gov, is not interested in developing its defense - clearly. And with Russia and China taking advantage of this sign of weakness, things will only get worse.

IFS - UK Defence spending composition, commitments and challenges - 2025

Australia Naval problems

I know also Australia has a very similar problem with its current Collins Submarines. We have six, but only one can be deployed because we just dont have the maintenance or submariners to man them. In fact, many recent Collins subs have been captained by other nations captains.

Parliment info - Lessons of the Collins Submarine Program

Look midway down page 39 for this very “glossed over” fact. Heres a quote from that paragraph:

“The most significant factor behind this trend is that Navy, more apparently than the other Services, cannot recruit and retain sufficient personnel to crew more vessels. In the context of the 1999–2000 Budget the RAN acknowledged that it could not reach its personnel targets for at least another 3 years. 156 By 2000–2001 the situation had deteriorated further, with Navy estimated to be 1100 [almost 8 per cent] below its nominal strength.”

To think Australia is now considering Virginia Class submarines for AUKUS is hilarious. Collins.. a 42 manned vessel to a Virginia Class which has requirements for over 120 personnel. Its madness. We can barely keep ONE Collins operational. Madness.

Australia over this time has also lost its manufacturing base. Car industries like Mitsubishi, Toyota, Holdens and Ford all had substantial manufacturing plants in Australia. This is important, because these large plants helped keep the “middle tier” parts and small manufacturing industries alive, along with keeping the skilling of the workforce on going.

Australia’s government introduced the Button Plan in the 90s which resulted in pushing the car makers out and this meant, that once Collins manufacturing and fitting halted after the last submarine, all our skills we had, left or changed industries. And thus its been no surprise to me (who worked at GM and in defense) when we started “trying” to build our own ships again, and our own submarines again, it just wouldnt happen. And it wont.

Mark my words. AUKUS is a dead man walking. There is no way Australia will ever make another submarine without a serious change in society, industry and education.

Hear my words UK. If you want to become like Australia, and have little to no ships, little to no shipbuilding industry, please get your industries and gov re-oriented. Without it, your nation as a great nation of the world, is over.