CONFIDENTIAL
2ND DRAFT
6.
ROYAL NAVY GENERAL PURPOSE COMBAT FORCES
The NATO Alliance must continue to face the formidable and
increasing threat posed by the maritime forces of the Warsaw Pact.
All major ships and the amphibious forces of the Royal Navy are
marked for assignment to NATO. The great majority operates in the
NATO area in peacetime, but our maritime forces deploy world-wide
as NATO, other allied, or national interests require.
The NATO Area
7. In the key NATO areas of the Eastern Atlantic and Channel Commands,
the United Kingdom provides the major part of the Alliance's readily
available maritime forces. A destroyer or frigate is allocated
full time as the United Kingdom's contribution to the NATO Standing
Naval Force Atlantic, and one mine countermeasures vessel is
allocated full time to NATO's Standing Naval Force Channel. Through-
out the last year, the Royal Navy has operationally deployed in these
areas an average of forty surface ships (of destroyer and frigate
size or above), twenty submarines and fifty other ships, supported
by Royal Fleet Auxiliaries.
8. In the Mediterranean, a guided-missile destroyer and
two frigates are currently earmarked for Supreme Allied
Commander Europe (SACEUR) and stationed in the
area. The Royal Navy also contributes to the NATO Naval On Call
Force Mediterranean: one ship is deployed in the vicinity of Gibraltar,
and a Royal Marines Commando Group is deployed in Malta (although the
majority of the Group is serving with the United Nations' forces in
Cyprus at present). Other destroyers, frigates, submarines and
Royal Fleet Auxiliaries also deploy periodically to the Mediterranean.
These elements are backed up from time to time by larger ships, such
as HMS Ark Royal, and Royal Naval amphibious forces. The size and
shape of these deployments will be reduced in step with the Defence
Review.
22
CONFIDENTIAL