今年秋季，皇家海军在17天内围绕英国海岸对俄舰艇实施了三次行动。周一一并公布，这三次行动配合得当。
In 17 days this autumn the Royal Navy ran three operations against Russian ships around our coast. Announced together on Monday, they combine well.
首先，情报收集舰“维克托·列奥诺夫”号在外赫布里底群岛外海游弋，在“打击战士”演习期间“密切监视北约军舰”。库尔德罗斯基地的“梅林”直升机飞往普雷斯特威克，对其进行了10天跟踪监视。其次，“无畏”号驱逐舰和巡逻舰“泰恩”号在英吉利海峡尾随俄护卫舰“涅乌斯特拉希米”号，后者当时正护送受制裁货船。第三，“泰恩”号从诺斯希尔兹出发，拦截登陆舰“亚历山大·沙巴林”号，该舰当时正护送一艘“影子舰队”船只和一艘拖船驶向波罗的海，第815中队的“野猫”直升机在上空掩护。
First, the intelligence ship Viktor Leonov loitered off the Outer Hebrides, “closely monitoring Nato warships” during Exercise Strike Warrior. Merlin helicopters from Culdrose were flown up to Prestwick and tracked her for 10 days. Second, HMS Dauntless and the patrol ship HMS Tyne shadowed the Russian frigate Neustrashimy through the Channel as she escorted sanctioned cargo ships. Third, HMS Tyne sailed from North Shields to pick up the landing ship Aleksandr Shabalin, nursing a shadow-fleet vessel and a tug towards the Baltic, with an 815 Squadron Wildcat overhead.
库尔德罗斯基地的詹姆斯·霍尔上校表示，其“梅林”直升机部队“随时准备在接到召唤的瞬间出动”。“泰恩”号舰长赞扬了“我们巡逻舰的灵活性和持久效用”。这些行动执行得当，既具有战术价值，也传递出明确信息：我们依然有能力做这些事。
Captain James Hall of Culdrose said his Merlin force “stands ready to answer the call at a moment’s notice”. Tyne’s captain praised “the flexibility and enduring utility of our patrol ships”. These are good operations, tactically valuable as well as sending a clear message that we can still do this stuff.
从俄方视角看，我想知道这三次行动是否有关联。我怀疑不是作为一个计划，而是作为一种模式。“列奥诺夫”号在做它惯常做的事。护航军舰现身英吉利海峡是较新现象，但如今已成常态：因为我们和其他国家开始登临检查“暗影舰队”油轮，莫斯科不得不派遣军舰护航，尽管英国仅执行过一次此类登临，且那艘名为“斯米尔托斯”号的油轮最终命运尚不明朗。目前它仍抛锚停泊在韦茅斯近海。海军称俄罗斯被迫调遣资源保护运输，这一说法属实。
From a Russian perspective, I wondered whether the three operations were connected. Not as a plan, I suspect, but as a pattern. Leonov was doing what she always does. Escort warships in the Channel are newer, but now a more or less permanent fixture: Moscow now has to assign warships to escort dark-fleet tankers because we and others have started boarding them, albeit we Britons have only done this once and the ultimate fate of that tanker, the Smyrtos, is not yet clear. For now she remains at anchor off Weymouth. The Navy’s line that Russia has been forced to deploy resources to protect its shipments is fair.
观察这些行动的实施方式也颇具启发性。皇家海军的大部分战斗力以直升机形式投入，但全部从陆基起飞。这虽可行，但选项远少于从军舰起飞——军舰能够 a) 缩短距离，b) 拥有封闭作战指挥室为飞行员提供支持，c) 若装备得当，还能提供强大的火力支援。
It was also interesting to see how these operations were carried out. Most of the Royal Navy combat power came in the form of helicopters, but all operating from land. This is fine but offers fewer options than flying from a warship that can a) close the distance and b) has an operations room closed up to support the aviators and c) if appropriately equipped, can provide serious backup firepower.
装备新型“海军打击导弹”的护卫舰，可依据直升机联络提供的情报，对水平线外的军舰实施打击。护卫舰本可高速驶往明奇海峡并驻留数周，更不用说在必要时使用自带声纳。我认为之所以采用这种方式，是因为没有护卫舰可供调遣。
A frigate armed with the new Naval Strike Missile could make an over-the-horizon strike against a warship based on information from a helicopter in contact. A frigate could have sprinted to the Minches and stayed there for weeks, not to mention using its own sonar if that became useful. I believe we did it this way because there are no frigates to spare.
取而代之的是近海巡逻舰执行跟踪监视任务。“泰恩”号及其同型舰虽属优秀舰艇，但并非为该任务设计；直说吧，它们几乎等同于无武装舰艇。其火力不足以在该角色中具备可信度。此外，第一批“河”级巡逻舰将于 2028 年退役，且无替代舰型规划。极有可能，我们将调回五艘第二批“河”级中的三艘（目前分别部署于福克兰群岛、加勒比海、地中海及太平洋两艘），以填补国内任务空缺，而它们原本极为有效的全球部署存在届时将悄然消失。
Instead, an offshore patrol vessel did the shadowing. Tyne and her sisters are great ships, but they were not built for this and to be brutal, they are the next best thing to unarmed. They lack the punch to be credible in this role. And besides, the Batch 1 Rivers go in 2028 with no replacement scheduled. Most likely, we will recall three of the five Batch 2s (now in the Falklands, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and two in the Pacific) to backfill the tasks back in the UK and most of the global presence they provide so effectively will quietly disappear.
回到国内，水面舰队数量已接近谷底。仅余五艘 23 型护卫舰，其中两艘恐将很快被判定为不适航。在即将服役的 31 型护卫舰到来前，到 2030 年我们可能仅剩三艘。这一切意味着，眼下已无舰艇可供他用：我们在曼德海峡——红海入口处的贡献，仅靠皇家空军。
Back here, surface-fleet numbers are getting close to the bottom of the trough. Just five Type 23 frigates remain, and two of these are likely to be declared unseaworthy before long. We are probably going to be down to three by 2030, before the forthcoming Type 31s can arrive. All this means that right now, there is nothing left for anything else: our contribution at the Bab el-Mandeb, the entrance to the Red Sea, is RAF only.
在霍尔木兹海峡附近，我们有一艘皇家辅助舰队（RFA）舰艇搭载着远程操作扫雷装备。具有讽刺意味的是，伊朗在周末将英国皇家海军指定为恐怖组织：人们不禁要问，既然几十年来我们首次在伊朗附近没有任何军舰，他们为何还要费这个劲。我们在7月给伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队（IRGC）贴了个折衷的“国家威胁”标签，至今仍未鼓起足够勇气将胡塞武装列为恐怖组织。
Near the Strait of Hormuz, we have one RFA carrying remotely operated mine-countermeasures kit. Ironically, Iran designated the Royal Navy a terrorist organisation at the weekend: one wonders why they bothered given that we have no warships anywhere near them for the first time in decades. We gave the Iranians’ Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) the halfway house “state threat” tag in July and have yet to find enough spine to designate the Houthis at all.
正在建造的五艘31型护卫舰绝对必须加快进度。这些舰艇设计相对简单，初期武装较轻，但吨位合适，未来可逐步改进。现阶段，海军必须抵制过度提高指标的冲动，这是许多在建军事项目的通病。同时也需要想办法大幅加快试验流程。简而言之，就是抓紧干。
The five Type 31s that are in build absolutely must be accelerated. These are comparatively simple ships and will be lightly armed to start with, but they are a good size and can be improved over time. At this stage, the Navy must resist the urge to over-spec them, the curse of so many military projects in build. It will also need to find a way to turbo-charge the trials process. In other words, get on with it.
同样，建造31型护卫舰的巴布科克罗斯赛斯造船厂目前实行八小时轮班制；完全可以增加班次。但鉴于我们的人员配备状况，存在舰艇建好却找不到足够船员的风险。皇家海军此前曾默许更昂贵的26型护卫舰建造进度一再推迟，生怕舰艇过早完工却缺乏受过良好训练的人员。这需要一场文化变革来化解，否则我们可能面临舰艇建成却无足够合格人员驾驶出海的局面。
Likewise, the Babcock yard in Rosyth where the Type 31s are being built is working eight-hour shifts; it easily could run more. Such is the state of our manning though, there is a risk that the ships end up ready before the people to crew them. The RN was previously content to allow the build of the more expensive Type 26 frigates to slide right for fear of not having enough correctly trained people if they were finished too soon. This will require a culture shift to mitigate, or we could end up with the ships finished and not enough qualified people to take them to sea.
所有这些当然都需要资源投入，但更根本的是，需要国家军备总监办公室的人开始真正做出决策。鉴于国防投资计划发布已过去四个月，为何至今仍无法确定31型护卫舰的最终采购数量、“通用作战舰”将是什么样子，以及哪些26型护卫舰将出售给挪威？
All of this needs resourcing, of course, but even more fundamentally, it needs someone in the National Armaments Director’s office to start making some actual decisions. Given that the defence investment plan was four months ago, why is there still no surety on overall Type 31 numbers, what the Common Combat Vessel will look like and which of the Type 26 frigates will be going to Norway?
与此同时，因该计划资金不足而辞去国防大臣职务的那位男子，如今已出任财政大臣。他在首份预算案中将国防开支维持在国内生产总值（GDP）的 2.7% —— 实际上这一比例要低得多，该数字涉及大量创造性会计手段 —— 并将达到 3% 的路径推至明年的支出审查。他比任何人都更清楚这对舰艇数量意味着什么。
Meanwhile, the man who resigned as defence secretary because that plan was underfunded is now Chancellor. His first Budget has held defence at 2.7 per cent of GDP – in reality considerably lower, that figure involved a lot of creative accounting – and pushed the path to three per cent into next year’s Spending Review. He knows better than anyone what this means for ship numbers.
海军在上个月的行动中表现出色。即使力量日益减弱，它仍将凭借现有力量继续出色完成任务。这是一个巨大的问题，但国防部的决策者和掌握财权的人似乎并不在意。
The Navy did well on operations last month. It will keep doing well with what it has, even as this becomes less and less. This is a huge problem and the decision makers in the MOD and those with the money don’t seem to care.