Much as Commonwealth nations often cooperate in missions at sea -- as these Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy and U.S. Navy warships (including the classic Spruance-class destroyer Fletcher, center) operated together in 2002 -- so too do today's links work together to create a clearer understanding of the news // Navy

Tea-drinkin’, “cheers”-sayin’, Bovril-eatin’, short pants-wearin’, pirate-fightin’, boomerang throwin’ links, helping you say ‘g’day’ to naval developments around the world:

• The Royal Navy doesn’t need carriers after all, a former Defence Staff chief said this week, and instead it should build more small ships to grow its fleet.
• England’s Prince Philip, Duke of Edinborough — Queen Elizabeth II’s arm candy — met an instructor of Royal Navy sea cadets this week and asked her if she worked in a strip club. Continued The Daily Mail: “The 88-year-old royal then appeared to think better of the suggestion in the current weather and joked that such an occupation would be ‘too cold.’
• The Australian navy is reeling from a new round of revelations in a sex scandal that Scoop Deck first told you about all the way back in July.
• Up in Marinette, Wisconsin, the littoral combat ship Fort Worth is about 30 percent complete, says shipbuilder Lockheed Martin.
• Russian President Dimitri Medvedev acknowledged problems in his country’s armed forces, which comprises mostly conscripts, although one analyst said the Russian navy could become an all-volunteer force.
• Costs for the Coast Guard’s Deepwater modernization program have risen again, our colleague Susan Schept reports.

The destroyer Daring sailed into the sunset on a training exercise off Portsmouth // Royal Navy

The plight of the Royal Navy today has been building for a very long time, according to a recent book that recounts the story of the modern service from 1957 until now.

From the very first pages of “Safeguarding the Nation” — an account of the Senior Service by the White Ensign Association, a U.K. booster group, and one of the books in the spring catalog of the Naval Institute Press — it’s clear that the Royal Navy has had to defend its existence for decades.

Prince Charles himself (styled “Admiral His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales KG, KT, OM, GCB, AK, QSO, ADC” in the forward) writes that one early big stroke came from a 1957 Defence Review, “Duncan Sandy’s axe,” which “called for very substantial reductions in the fleet and for naval manpower to be cut by 26,000 in four years.”

An axe was about to fall again in the early 1980s under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, writes author John Roberts, when a government review recommended deep chops to the fleet:

“First the big ships were to go, with the new carrier Invicible being sold to Australia and the carrier Hermes phased out. The two remaining amphibious assault ships, Fearless and Intrepid, were to be withdrawn earlier than planned without any replacements. At the same time there was to be a 30 percent reduction in frigates and destroyers, with the scrapping of all the Rothesay and Leander class frigates. Also the ice patrol ship Endurance was to be withdrawn from Antarctica and scrapped, a decision which was to have an enormous political consequence out of all proportion to any financial savings.”

Interestingly, as Roberts points out earlier in the book, it was the crew of Endurance who discovered an Argentine camp on South Thule in December of 1977, one of the things that set the stage for you know what. When the Falklands War did heat up, Britain was glad it still had the ships it had planned to eliminate, although, as Roberts writes, it “was a war which was certainly not anticipated and for which the Royal Navy was not well prepared owing to severe cuts in the defence budget and changes in government defence policy.”

Still more cuts came, however, as well as decisions by British leadership to mortgage much of its fleet against the promise of its two new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.  Even Roberts’ final words in the volume are a plea for support for the Royal Navy, and a caution that UK policymakers might not be able to rely on American naval support in a future military operation as much as they think:

“[I]t would be extremely foolhardy to rely entirely on the USA for our survival,” he writes. “Whilst we have a common cause and operate together we derive considerable advantages from their military power, but history has repeatedly demonstrated that we cannot depend on allies always being on our side.”

The Royal Navy destroyer Sheffield burned after being hit by an Argentine anti-ship missile during the Falklands War, which, despite recent tensions, seems unlikely to get a second installment // Royal Navy

Great Britain and Argentina are in another tiff these days, centering — again — on the U.K.’s tiny island possessions in the South Atlantic. The British (and everyone else) call them the Falklands; the Argentines call them las Malvinas. The last time these two nations got into a big tiff over the islands, 28 years ago, it escalated into a shooting war, but there’s not much worry about that this time. Or is there?

Just as when Argentina invaded the Falklands the first time, in 1982, the ruling government in the U.K. is unpopular, mired in economic turmoil and on the verge of making more steep cuts to its military — especially the Royal Navy. There have even been discussions in London of collapsing all the British armed forces into one mutant super-service. You could make the argument that the U.K. was no more prepared to fight its first Falklands War than it would be for a second round.

However, this column in the Daily Mail, by the man who commanded the Royal Navy’s amphibious group back in the day, shoots that right down:

So as as the sound of political sabre rattling returns to the South Atlantic, could we repeat that success today? I’m not doubting the resolve of our armed forces – our soldiers, sailors and airmen have a long and proud track record of plucking success from adversity – but I’m sorry to say that we no longer have the ships and equipment to launch a sea-borne attack on an enemy on the other side of the world… If the Royal Naval fleet has shrunk spectacularly since 1982 – it had 55 frigates and destroyers then; today it has 24 – then the British merchant fleet has all but disappeared. Who knows where we’d get the ships to support a war in the South Atlantic from now.

From the U.S. Navy, perhaps? President Reagan didn’t get too openly involved in FWI, but as Adm. Sandy Woodward wrote in his memoir “100 Days,” the British Harrier pilots over the Falklands couldn’t have been as successful as they were without American-built AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. If the U.K. and Argentina decided to throw down again, who knows what kind of help the U.S. might provide — or withhold.

The Royal Navy aircraft carrier Illustrious trained in 2007 with the U.S. carriers Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman. British dependence on U.S. seapower could increase as the U.K.'s defense woes endure // MC2 Jay Pugh / Navy

In addition to Anglophilia and a frank admiration for the tremendous heritage of Nelson, Jellicoe, et al.,  Scoop Deck likes to write about the Royal Navy because a case could be made that it represents a possible future for the U.S. Navy. Cut, shrunk, starved, downsized and sometimes humiliated over the past 30 years, today’s lot for the ships that fly the White Ensign is what happens, some argue, when people who stop caring about or even understanding seapower see no problems with letting it atrophy. Advocates worry about populations coming down with “sea blindness.”

Things for the U.S. Navy aren’t nearly as dire yet, and the latest step under consideration in Great Britain is inconceivable for the U.S. military: British commanders are considering merging their three services — the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force — into some kind of new mutant super-service, according to this must-read story in The Telegraph. As an added bonus, the piece quotes a man with a hilarious name: Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of the Defence Staff:

[Said Stirrup]: reorganising the services could be part of a radical reordering of the country’s defences. The air force is thought to be the service most likely to lose out in any restructuring. Sir Jock spoke as ministers published a green paper conceding that Britain cannot afford all of its current defence commitments, and will in future become more reliant on allies like the US and France to conduct military operations.

On that score, there’s another story in the U.K. today about how the Royal Navy will ask France to contribute escorts for its two new aircraft carriers, because the British likely won’t be able to afford them.

Which brings up the other reason why it’s worth paying attention to whatever happens with the U.K. military services — if British ships get into a jam out there somewhere, American sailors could be called in to get them out of it.

The Royal Navy, under the command of Adm. Horatio Nelson, engaged the French and Spanish fleets in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 // UK National Maritime Museum

Normally, the Olympics would be of absolutely zero interest to Scoop Deck, but a story today out of Great Britain — site of the 2012 summer games — includes a neat item: Organizers want to use the games, and a bureaucratic reshuffling in the Ministry of Defence, to attract Olympics visitors in London down to Portsmouth to see Nelson’s grand flagship, HMS Victory.

According to this story in The News of Portsmouth, the fate of the Victory was in doubt as recently as last year, when MoD conducted a review about how to maintain the ship over the long term. (It’s not clear if the Ministry’s reviews go “from soup to nuts,” as is the cliche in our Pentagon.) Decision-makers decided to give HMS Victory to the new National Museum of the Royal Navy, whose director told the newspaper the ship could be the centerpiece of many attractions that would bring international visitors  down from the games in London.

A day touring HMS Victory, which can fire a 52-gun broadside, does sound much, much more fun than watching some guy throw the shot put.

Just as the dock landing ship Carter Hall prepared to offload supplies and troops offshore, so too do today's links bring the latest updates about the humanitarian mission in Haiti // MC2 Kristopher Wilson / Navy

Heavy-lift helo flyin’, cargo pallets loadin’, well deck floodin’, LCU launchin’, force-for-good-bein’ links, anchored offshore and ready to deliver the latest updates on the biggest Navy amphibious operation since Inchon.

• The U.S. is sending a second amphibious ready group to join the one already on station off Port-au-Prince and delivering shipments of food and medicine. The amphibious assault ship Nassau, the amphibious transport dock Mesa Verde and the dock landing ship Ashland are to arrive in the Caribbean within a week.
• The quiet professionals of the Coast Guard are continuing to evacuate Americans, deliver supplies and help clear the port of Port-au-Prince.
• Typically the Royal Navy would be a part of such a major international response to Haiti, The Times reports, but budget cuts mean Great Britain doesn’t have its normal naval presence in the Caribbean.
• How important is the port of Port-au-Prince to getting serious quantities of relief supplies into Haiti? Galrahn’s got a great post that talks about that and many other things. Sample factoid: 13 C-17 shipments = 1 USNS Sacagewea.
• Doctors aboard the hospital ship Comfort are peeved they haven’t been able to give more aid so far.
• Our salty senior colleague Mark D. Faram, on the ground with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, has some great shots of the Marines setting up their supply drop in Leogane.

Hard times: The Royal Navy carrier Ark Royal suffered a fire in one of its gas turbines (its third since September) and British sailors complained their lot was worse than prisoners, in stories that appeared a day apart. // Royal Navy

When the Royal Navy’s carrier Ark Royal put to sea for its most recent set of exercises, the British admiralty probably had no idea how much news the ship would make: First people worried it would put the Royal Fleet Auxiliary out of business, then it became the first British warship on Twitter, and now it suffered an engine room fire at 30 knots in the English Channel.

The Ark Royal was weaving and dancing at high speed as part of an air-attack exercise when one of its gas turbines caught fire, The Times reported. The ship’s engineers and fire-fighting systems put out the flames, but it was Ark Royal’s third main-space fire since getting out of the yard in September. How much longer can the navy keep this up, the newspaper wondered.

The Royal Navy has gotten to such a low point that sailors are reaching for that time-honored complaint that they’re treated worse than convicts. Sailors from the frigate Portland told the UK’s Mirror newspaper they had to spend Christmas and New Year’s aboard a ship with no heat, bad food and no news:

“One said: ‘We would be better off if we committed a crime and got thrown in jail. Morale has hit rock bottom.’”

Great Britain's aircraft carrier Ark Royal chopped into Tweet Forces Command's AOR when it became the first U.K. warship to join the popular world of micro-blogging // Royal Navy

There are many great Twitter feeds from commands throughout the fleet — for example, just pulling a few random samples from the Twitter Feed of Excellence, you can follow the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard and the carriers Harry S. Truman and Nimitz.

Tweeting, however, is apparently something new over in the Royal Navy, according to this story in the Telegraph, which says that the carrier Ark Royal is the first British warship to Tweet at sea:

Messages include information about choir practice and a chemical training exercise, complete with images of the crew in chemical suits and respirators. A recent post says: “Just had our brief for our final training war tomorrow. We are all living up to our motto – ‘Zeal does not rest’.”

HMS Ark Royal’s commanding officer, Captain John Clink, said he was keen to keep up with the latest technology.

“For hundreds of years the Royal Navy has been at the forefront of technology – particularly communications between ship and shore,” he said. “So it’s no surprise to me that we are embracing all available media, especially the internet, to keep the public up to date with our operations.

Check it out here — they’ve already got 102 followers.

Much as this fast-attack submarine demonstrates the Navy's ability to reach even the remotest points on the globe, so too do today's links get updates to you wherever you are // MC1 Tiffini Jones Vanderwyst / Navy

Silent runnin’, enemy SSBN huntin’, upward-looking sonar pingin’, Ice Station Zebra findin’, “Nautilus 90-North” sendin’ links, ordering you to surface the ship and for all hands to prepare to carry these headlines topside, onto the pack:

• PACOM commander Adm. Robert Willard says he thinks China will field its first aircraft carrier by 2015 — coincidentally, the same year it sinks the American carrier George Washington, according to another prediction.
• The Royal Navy has had one Type 45 destroyer, Daring, for about a year, and just got its second, Dauntless, but neither has any of their wham-o-dyne missile systems, and won’t get them for awhile.
• What does one professional civilian mariner think about a Navy captain’s Dilbert Circuit book of management recommendations for doing business? In a word, meh.
• The TV program “NCIS,” which recently included a cameo by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, isn’t edgy, or exciting, or interesting, or good, per se. So why is a program about the Navy’s crime-solving agency the most-watched in America? Here’s one explanation.
• Navy Times has probably run hundreds of images by MC1 (SW/AW) Tiffini Jones Vanderwyst, and other people are noticing, too: Her image of the fast-attack sub Annapolis in the Arctic (above) was picked as one of Time magazine’s photos of the year for 2009.
• Apparently there’s some kind of foot-ball match this weekend in Philadelphia between the teams that represent the U.S. Military Academy and the Naval Academy. If you’re interested, Scoop Deck’s siblog After Action will be covering this thing like a blanket, as well as demonstrating why reporters and/or bloggers should be read but not seen.

Has the Royal Navy's carrier Ark Royal lat-moved from being a ship of the line to a resupply auxiliary? // Royal Navy

This could be nothing, or it could be huge — the Royal Navy used one of its aircraft carriers, the Ark Royal, to refuel and re-supply a frigate at sea last month. It could be just another training evolution, or it could be the first step to privatizing the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Britain’s equivalent of the Military Sealift Command, which operates supply ships, oilers and other support ships for the Royal Navy.

What it means seems to depend on where you’re coming from, according to this story in The News of Portsmouth, England. Royal Navy officials say not to worry, but the maritime unions who depend on the RFA consider it “ominous” that Ark Royal, and not an RFA supply ship, showed it could rendezvous at sea with the frigate St. Albans ahead of more expected budget cuts:

As revealed by The News last month, shocked RFA staff were told in Portsmouth that the Treasury had pushed for cost savings that could mean the privatisation of the service.

A fleet auxiliary worker from Portsmouth, who does not want to be named, said: ‘To have the navy showing how it can replenish ships without the RFA ahead of a major review is really insensitive. We are waiting to hear if we will be out of work and that seems like really bad timing.’

[Union] spokesman Geoff Martin said: ‘The display of a warship-to-warship replenishment is very ominous as the service faces this uncertainty.’

Times are hard everywhere. Well, with no remaining air wings of Sea Harriers, the Royal Navy at least has found a new use for its carriers…

"All right, boys, everybody got it? We see any limey beer on this mission, crush first, ask questions second, understand?" "Hua, sarge!" // Spc. Maurice A. Galloway / Army

Scoop Deck doesn’t mind admitting a weakness for an ice-cold brewski every once in awhile during the off-duty hours, and as such, found this item shocking: The U.S. Army reportedly destroyed 7,000 cans of beer that were the former property of the Royal Navy in Iraq. After the Americans took over a British base in Umm Qasr, the soldiers rounded up the Brits’ leftover cans and crushed them with an armored vehicle.

Here’s the background, as written by reporter Oliver August of The Times of London:

The British had been forced to vacate the premises after the Iraqi parliament failed to ratify an intergovernmental agreement in July. Before leaving, the naval trainers packed their beer into a container at the base in Umm Qasr, intending to reclaim it when their legal status was settled. However, American servicemen are not allowed to drink alcohol at the base and so had no use for the 7,000 cans — with dire results.

The common room at the base, known as the AK Bar, serves Coors alcohol-free beer only. “You’d be more likely to get drunk from sniffing the hand sanitisers,” said one soldier.

Oh, the thought of all that beautiful beer, running into the sand under that scorching sun! At least it was non-alcoholic. In fact, maybe that’s the best thing that could’ve happened to it.

H/T: Shipbuilding expert Tim Colton, who gave credit to the Army for “a narrow escape from the ever-present threat of rampant alcoholism.”

The icebreaker Polar Sea cleared a channel through the Arctic ice so vessels could pass through, much as today's links break through the online clutter to bring you the latest // Coast Guard

Ice-crushin’, channel clearin’, back-and-forth rockin’, long voyage takin’, high visibility links, breaking a path to you for the latest stories and updates on the Web:

• Pirate attack: Somali hijackers have seized a Greek oil tanker, the Maran Centaurus, bound for New Orleans with a full cargo. Last word was that a Greek frigate is shadowing the vessel.
• Fleet in decline: The Russian navy is looking at a dramatic drop in the number of ships it can field by 2015, when it will have to mothball many of its ex-Soviet warships, a retired Russian admiral says.
• Fleet in ascent:The Russians have to replace all those old ships with something, right? As Scoop Deck told you in August, the Russians want to buy a version of the French Navy’s Mistral-class amphibious assault ships, so the Mistral itself is visiting St. Petersburg this week so the Russian brass can take a look.
• PSPs for sailors: No, not for American sailors, unfortunately. Students at the Royal Navy’s HMS Collingwood college in Hampshire, England, will be getting Playstation Portables for help with their “studies.”
• LCS trinkets: Would you like a crystal paperweight inlaid with an image of the second littoral combat ship, Independence? Well you can buy ‘em now, to help support the ship’s commissioning in Mobile, Ala., Jan. 16
• Online connections: Sailors from a Chicago suburb use social networking to stay connected, even though they’re thousands of miles apart.
• Innovator remembered: The WaPo memorialized an engineer who played a central role in the development of submarine-launched missiles.

One of the UK's two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers could become an Indian carrier if a proposed sale goes through // Royal Navy

The shipbuilding future of the Royal Navy has grown so bleak that new stories about what could happen to it have almost lost their ability to dismay. After the Ministry of Defence raised the possibility that it could delete the ability to handle F-35B Lightning II fighters from one of its future aircraft carriers, now it’s raising the possibility of selling one ship outright — to India.

The financial penalties of not building one of the two Queen Elizabeth-class flattops are more prohibitive than going through with it, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reports, so selling one to India could presumably defray the economic impact of going ahead with two ships. It isn’t clear yet how that deal would affect India’s tortured attempts to buy the ex-Soviet aircraft carrier Gorshkov, or whether the upshot of it all means that the Indians could have two new carriers — a used Russian one and British one fresh off the showroom floor — when the smoke cleared in the next decade.

Other implications: Would India buy one of the CVFs as-is, meaning designed to accommodate the short-takeoff, vertical-landing F-35B, even though it isn’t a member of the Joint Strike Fighter club? Or would it ask for changes so the ship could handle a different jet, such as the Su-33? That’d be interesting.

Meantime, the UK could be left with one new carrier, half its original order of fighter jets, and, in a major crisis, could need support from the U.S. Navy more than ever.

Sailors aboard the carrier Nimitz mustered to get ready to man the rails for a port visit in Japan, much as today's links are mustering to provide you with news and updates // MCSA Robert Winn / Navy

Restricted maneuvering doctrine settin’, ATM cash-withdrawin’, rail mannin’ links, eager to tie up, race down the brow and get into the bars town as quickly as possible:

• After a triumphant visit and commissioning in its namesake city, the amphibious transport dock New York, like so many other newcomers to the Big Apple, is taking refuge in New Jersey.
• The Royal Navy’s newest attack submarine, the Astute, is on its way to the Royal Navy’s famed submarine base in Faslane, Scotland.
• The littoral combat ship Freedom is making a visit to Naval Station Mayport, Fla., the local newspaper reported, nervously pointing out that LCS will “replace” the frigates homeported there.
• Have you heard about this amazing discovery of these World War II Japanese submarines off Hawaii?
• The Missile Defense Agency has announced the next six ships that will be upgraded with ballistic missile defense capability, and, as expected, they’re all East Coast destroyers.
• Remember that movie in which the decommissioned carrier John F. Kennedy inexplicably crushes the White House in a tidal wave? It comes out today.

One of the Royal Navy's planned carriers, scene in this illustration, could lose its capability to carry F-35Bs, the Ministry of Defence said Sunday // Royal Navy

Is it the first step toward the Royal Navy losing its new carriers? Or is it a compromise that will ensure they’ll both be built? Those seem to be the two options after the announcement Sunday that the Royal Navy is willing to delete the capability to handle F-35B Lightning IIs from one of its two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers, now just beginning construction. That would mean the Ministry of Defence could buy fewer fighters, saving billions of pounds, but that for all its recent sacrifices, it would only field half the naval air power it originally wanted.

According to The Guardian, this could mean the Royal Navy might have to make even further concessions about its two carriers, including eliminating one or both altogether. And The Times reminds us the carrier change represents “another blow to the [Royal] Navy’s prestige,” after the British government announced not too long ago it was considering deleting one of the fleet’s four Vanguard-class ballistic-missile subs.

Here’s even more context: News broke on Friday that the Joint Strike Fighter could be billions of dollars over-budget and possibly in need of restructuring. So what would fewer jets going to the U.K. do to the rest of the program? Good question.

As it is, the Royal Navy is looking at a situation in which it’s spending a lot to get a ship it effectively didn’t need to build, writes Mike Burleson:

“We can only wonder if an upgraded Ocean class with a strengthened deck would have been less costly and less a burden to build during wartime.”

A Marine CH-53E Super Stallion from HMH 464, the "Condors," flew over the Gulf of Aden, much as today's links fly new information to you // Tech. Sgt. Jeremy T. Lock/ Air Force

Big, loud, heavy, smelly, hydraulic fluid drippin’, cargo carryin’, mine sled dredgin’ links, getting ready to touch down on the flight deck and unload these updates:

• The crew of the cruiser Anzio — which you met a few weeks ago here on the Deck — made life unpleasant for some drug smugglers in the Gulf of Aden this week.
• As if South Carolina’s Patriots Point museum didn’t already have enough problems, Naval Sea Systems Command has passed the word: Either fix up the carrier Yorktown, which is in bad shape, or get ready to sink it.
• Today is the 212th anniversary of the launch of the frigate Constitution, or Old Ironsides, as we call it, which has made Maggie very excited, because she gets to take it out for a spin.
• Speaking of launches, the Royal Navy’s fifth Type 45 destroyer, or the Daring-class, as we call it, was set to launch today in the River Clyde in Scotland.
• Speaking of launches, the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy, check out this piece about the birth of the Continental Navy from Naval History and Heritage Command.

Drug runners be ye warned: The British frigate Iron Duke brought in the biggest cocaine seizure in the Royal Navy's history this week // Royal Navy

Does anyone not enjoy seeing the Royal Navy interdict drug smugglers, seize their contraband, then shoot up their vessels and sink them? If you don’t like it, don’t watch this video of the British frigate Iron Duke’s latest coup — the biggest cocaine seizure in Royal Navy history — which includes some pretty motivational footage of a helicopter machine gun raking the drug runners’ boat.

This is only the latest big takedown by Iron Duke, which Scoop Deck readers will remember from the last time it made a big drug collar out on the water. By the way, the embedded video here includes a voiceover added by the ITN network; you can see the Royal Navy’s raw, unedited video on its website here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arguments are taking place around the world over whether Britain should mothball one of its four Vanguard-class ballistic missile subs // Royal Navy

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s support for eliminating one of the Royal Navy’s four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines isn’t just a British issue anymore — there are reports about it from all around the world, including here in the States. The latest one to catch our attention was this editorial in the Wall Street Journal faulting Brown and his government for scaling back Great Britain’s nuclear deterrent:

[I]t’s no accident that Britain’s nuclear era coincides with her longest period of relative peace in history. Deterrence works, though its effects can only be inferred by crises evaded and battles not fought … All this, while Iran has just upgraded Britain to Most Evil Nation status. It’s an unpleasant reality and something Mr. Brown ought to think carefully about, lest he be accused of being Barack Obama’s poodle.

And that editorial was written before the world learned Friday that Iran has a second nuclear processing facility.

Here’s another thing to think about — what does Brown’s decision mean for the SSBN(X) program?

The U.S. and Royal Navies have said they want to share a common missile compartment for their next generation of ballistic-missile submarines. Will mothballing one Vanguard mean that work has to speed up? Or could it place Britain on the road to eliminating its deterrent mission altogether — as much of the population wants — and mean the U.S. will end up shouldering the whole load for SSBN(X)?

Much as the E-2C Hawkeyes of VAW 115, the "Liberty Bells," become a strike group's eyes in the sky, so too do today's links give early warning about what's new on the Web // MC3 Jarod Hodge/ Navy

Bow catapult launchin’, air-searchin’, combat air patrol-vectorin’, friend-or-foe identifyin’ links, orbiting high above the strike group to alert you in advance about these items on the Web:

• The reef-ization of the destroyer Arthur W. Radford, which you learned about awhile ago here on the Deck, is reportedly going to be “a big deal” for Maryland tourism.
• A Royal Navy sailor has become the first woman in that august service, and only the second woman in Britain’s military, to receive the prestigious Military Cross.
• An marine inventor claims his new light submarine “has capability greater than the U.S. Navy”
• You probably thought  “leaders” was just a normal English word, but it’s actually an acronym, according to this — on a related matter, hooya, chiefs!
• Navy Times told you recently about Virginia Sen. Jim Webb’s worries about the state of the Navy’s four shipyards — looks like he’s not the only one who’s concerned.

U.S. Navy

The new Virginia-class attack submarine New Hampshire returned today to  its homeport of New London, Conn., after its maiden voyage.  New Hampshire operated in the European Command area and took part in the UK’s Joint Warrior — formerly known as Neptune Warrior — exercise. Other Virginia-class boats have done short first deployments to the 4th Fleet area.

New Hampshire, the fifth in its class, was commissioned less than a year ago, on Oct. 25 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

The sun set on the frigate Iron Duke as it prepared to pull out of Portsmouth, England for a deployment // Royal Navy

The crew of the Royal Navy frigate Iron Duke ruined the afternoon of some suspected drug smugglers this week, when it interdicted their boat, arrested them, and then sank their vessel. The BBC has some great video of the Iron Duke’s sailors going to town on the suspects’ vessel with their cannons and machine guns — you can see it here. The U.S. Coast Guard was also along for the ride, the Beeb reported.

Iron Duke, by the by, is the same frigate that England’s Prince William served aboard last year as part of his extended stint in the British military.

The crew of the frigate Halyburton presents a keg of rum to the Constable of the Tower of London // The Telegraph

“Ooo gaws thee-ahh? What tribute bring ye before the dread pow-ah of this Towah?”

The British press reports didn’t include a transcript of this weekend’s Constable’s Dues ceremony at the Tower of London, but that’s how it would’ve begun if Scoop Deck were in charge. However the script reads, the crew of the frigate Halyburton became the first foreign sailors in British history to present the yearly dues to the constable of the tower, in a centuries-old tradition. Specifically, the crew brought the constable a giant keg of rum.

Reports the AP: “In 1381, King Richard II issued a grant specifying the tolls, including ‘two roundlets of wyne’ for any galley passing the Tower. Adds Wikipedia: One reason ships paid the tribute was in exchange for the protection of the tower’s cannons.

So when they arrived for a port visit in London, the American crew was game. Although according to The Telegraph, the American sailors had to borrow some gear for the ceremony, given that U.S. warships are drier than the Gobi Desert:

The American shore party [...] marched through the Tower of London to Tower Green, accompanied by Yeoman Warders in scarlet and gold state dress and a Corps of Drums to deliver the rum to the current Constable, General Sir Roger Wheeler…

However [Halyburton skipper Cmdr. Michael P. Huck] admitted neither the cask nor the rum was actually cargo from the ship.

“The wine cask has been provided to us by the Tower authorities,” he said. “It will actually be filled with Castillo Silver Rum. Unfortunately, since we do not typically carry alcohol on-board, that was also provided to us.”

The constable’s post was once a powerful position. He was entitled to collect money from fishermen and pilgrims, and could claim any horses, oxen, pigs or sheep that fell off London Bridge.

Also absent from the British press coverage: Why didn’t the Royal Navy present the keg this year?

The fast-attack submarine Hawaii sailed in May from its former homeport in Groton, Conn. to its new base in Hawaii. The ship is scheduled to arrive this week //Navy

Flood tubes one and three, spin up the weapons, match bearings and check out these links, ready to let a little water into that surface target:

• They’re pumped out in Hawaii that the state’’s eponymous attack submarine will arrive this week, in time for statehood celebrations.
• The crew of the fast-attack submarine Toledo was, according to reports, pumped about the delicious hot dogs, delicious relish and delicious mustard they ate when they were served by the staff of Toledo, Ohio, chow landmark Tony Packo’s. And the sailors didn’t even have to go to Ohio.
• Even though it’s creeping back into the submarine game, the Russian navy has been badly disappointed by a series of missile test failures.
• The crew of the frigate McClusky added some members to its fan club this weekend when it helped stop a sailboat from sinking off San Diego.
• The British destroyer Daring took aboard 5,000 guess this weekend in a show-and-tell evolution that Royal Navy commanders hope could gain some support for the navy in these times of austere budgets.
• Speaking of the Royal Navy, British prime minister Gordon Brown continues to support the U.K.’s two aircraft carriers, despite their cost.

//U.S. Navy

There’s a steady cascade of reports out of Great Britain about a lack of support for Royal Navy involvement in the next iteration of the Trident missile submarine. The argument is that with likely threats not coming from an actual country that can be punched back with a sea-launched ballistic missile, scarce dollars, if spent on the military, should be spent to defend against more likely threats. Prominent former military leaders have called for plans to improve the sea-based deterrent to be cast aside.

The U.S. Navy asked for $495 million in the 2010 defense budget to begin work on a future replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. Since the U.S. and British boomers share the Trident ballistic missile technology, the Royal Navy has been assumed as a partner in updates to the missile systems.

British defence officials (as opposed to our “defense” officials here in the U.S.) may have to cut the Royal Navy’s new ballistic missile submarine program or even one of the two carriers, according to the Financial Times.

The Royal Navy's advanced new destroyer, Daring, won't get its advanced air-warfare capabilities until at least 2011, the British press reports // U.K. Ministry of Defence

Y’hate to hear about it, but y’can’t look away: More frustrations for our English-speaking cousins in the Royal Navy and their high-speed, low-drag new DDG, the Daring. A U.S. naval officer gushed to us once about Daring’s advanced air-warfare capabilities — “only ship in the world that can defeat the Sizzler,” he declared — and yet the ship is going to sea without its Principal Anti-Air Missile System missiles, and it won’t get them until 2011.

A Parliamentary committee lambasted the Royal Navy and the Ministry of Defence for their management of the Type 45 destroyer program, according to reports in the British press:

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said today’s report “highlights the extraordinary risk that this government is taking with our nation’s defences in an increasingly volatile world. “This government’s appalling incompetence has left the Royal Navy having to ‘juggle and hope’ with only half the new ships it was supposed to have.”

The effect of this for U.S. Navy readers seems to be that, if the Royal Navy wants to undertake any major operations at sea before its full run of Type 45s become operational, the British either will have to bite their tongues or enlist the help of American, Aegis-equipped allies.

The Royal Navy plans to forego several surface ships and submarines in exchange for two new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers // Royal Navy

The skirmishes among the British military services we told you about awhile ago have escalated into full-blown war, in what has become a grim cautionary tale about what can happen to a nation’s armed forces in times of lean budgets.

In the recession-wracked U.K., Parliament is scrambling for things to cut, and the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and the British Army are trying to put the bull’s eye on each other’s backs.  The RAF wants control over the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, which has been without its Harrier jets since 2006, flying RAF planes instead. “We have got to kill some sacred cows to make ourselves more efficient,” said Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, Chief of the Air Staff.

The British Army calls the navy’s carriers “Cold War relics.” And even as Britain’s senior service tries to defend itself, as the Telegraph reports, the Royal Navy is perhaps the least prominent to the British public:

[S]o much of what the Navy does is invisible. Be it anti-drugs patrols in the Caribbean, anti-piracy patrols off Somalia, mine clearance in the Persian Gulf or intelligence gathering by nuclear-powered attack submarines, naval operations rarely make the news… When the Navy did make the headlines in March 2007 it was in the most humiliating circumstances. Fifteen Marines and sailors from the frigate Cornwall were captured by the Iranians while inspecting vessels in the Persian Gulf. Images of detainees smiling their way through captivity were compounded by the inexplicable decision to allow several to sell their stories. Nelsonian it was not.

So even as the Royal Navy continues to exchange deep cuts elsewhere for its two new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, it has to face a pair of enemies at home before it can ever face an external one.

"This is the captain. Any sailor caught eating brussel sprouts is to be keelhauled. That is all." // Royal Navy

In the grandest tradition of Nelson at Trafalgar or Jellicoe at Jutland, another Royal Navy commander has struck an audacious blow against an enemy of Britain and Her Majesty, the Queen. Capt. Wayne Keble, commander of the amphibious assault ship Bulwark, has given standing  weapons-release authorization against a foe he has described as being in the employ of Satan himself — brussel sprouts.

“They are the devil’s vegetable and the only thing I do not like, and the only thing I hate,” Keble told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. “Brussels sprouts are absolutely banned on board HMS Bulwark. I do not eat them so I do not know what the after-effects are.”

Not that Keble is against all vegetables, or doesn’t support creating a culture of fitness, the Telegraph reported.

“Healthy eating is something I promote. I do promote that and I do a lot of exercise myself. I also promote adventure training and try to eat healthily. One of my roles as commanding officer is to ensure that we are fit and healthy and that we have a healthy lifestyle, moderate our alcohol intake and make sure we are not overweight.”

You read that right, “alcohol intake” — on Keble’s ship you not only won’t have to eat brussel sprouts, you can drink a beer in the ship’s bar. If you want to join up click here… we’re just sayin’…

Royal Navy

Sailors from the Royal Navy frigate Portland on Tuesday brought the pain to a gang of suspected pirates off the lawless coast of Somalia — sort of. After interdicting a group of men on a small boat, the British sailors determined “they didn’t have enough evidence” to detain them, so they ultimately let them go. But not before the Portland shot up and sank the pirates’ boat.

England’s Daily Mail newspaper has some amazing photographs of the British sailors in fine pirate-fightin’ form, including a shot of sailors fast-roping from a helicopter onto a suspected pirate dhow.

In other Royal Navy news, the Portland’s sibling frigate Northumberland is another newcomer to the action-packed world of collective blogging, with a “ship’s diary” of its adventures.