News, Articles and Comment

Ed. As another Integrated Review (IR) is highly likely to take place after the General Election and the timetable needs to be speedy – I am keen to enable members to have their say via the Forum now.  A suitably edited extract will be passed on to the Naval Staff.

Ed. The third article from the NR archives in our series on Operation OVERLORD for the 80^th Anniversary. The author considered the development of combined operations, logistics and equipment as background on the OVERLORD planning process. Originally published in January 1961 [49/1, p. 18]. A 30 minute read.

Ed. In light of the recent HMS Vanguard ballistic missile test-firing, our correspondent reflects on a previous disappointing submarine-launched ballistic missile test.

Ed. RAdm James Goldrick RAN provided the first chapter to the NR’s centenary publication, Dreadnought to Daring (2012), in which he conducted a prosopographical study of the Naval Review’s founders. A 50 minute read.

Ed. Capt Stocker’s forthcoming Navy Records Society volume The Postwar Fleet is highly anticipated. Provided here is a sample document, written in 1949 by the Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Ralph Edwards, later Controller of the Navy and then Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean. It was circulated to the First Sea Lord and other members of the Admiralty Board. The original is held at the National Archives, Kew [ADM 205/83]. A 20 minute read.

Ed. The increasingly Joint and interservice nature of senior command raises fascinating possibilities regarding the career paths of future RN and RM officers. Through research and interviews the author asks, and answers, the question of what path a Royal Marine might follow to become First Sea Lord. A 30 minute read.

Ed. David Waters concluded his 1995-1996 series of reflections on the Battle of the Atlantic [84/2 & 84/3] by returning to the question of convoy ‘laws’ and his concern that ideological assumptions and abstract thought concerning future operations would once again take precedence over the scientific conclusions he had reached forty years before. A 25 minute read.

Ed. In this second instalment of his reflections on the Battle of the Atlantic [84/1, p. 68], former Naval Staff historian David Waters, wary of the pernicious abuses of language so frequent in military affairs, asked the difficult question of why the convoy lessons of the First World War were not learnt before the Second. Republished here as part of the 80th Anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic. A 20 minute read.

Ed. The author surveys the Delivering Combined Seapower (DCS) concept, with the goal of moving from interoperable USN-RN operations to a more thoroughly integrated interchangeable dynamic. Credit to the United States Center for Maritime Strategy, originally published on the Maritime Ops Center website (https://centerformaritimestrategy.org/publications/strengthening-the-special-relationship-delivering-combined-sea-power/). A 5 minute read.