TNAG-0537-FCO40-632-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 57

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.

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CONFIDENTIAL