– Daily Telegraph – Spending on the successor to Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent will take up to a third of the defence budget within the next decade, defence experts are warning.

– The Guardian – Undeclared arms race among European defence contractors to re-equip Libya’s armed forces causes concern among locals.

– Navy Recognition – During Euronaval 2012 in October last year, BAE Systems Maritime – Naval Ships showcased a Type 26 “Global Combat Ship” frigate model with a slightly modified design compared to the big design update unveiled during DSA 2012 in April last year. We asked a few questions to BAE Systems on the reasons behind the latest changes to the design.

– Daily Telegraph – Royal Navy insiders have described the latest multi-billion aircraft carriers as “white elephants” with “dinky toys” on top.

– Daily Mail – The Royal Navy’s ageing Sea King helicopters, which currently provide the fleet’s Airborne Early Warning (AEW) system, will be retired in 2016. And their multi-million-pound replacements could be delayed until 2022 – leaving HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales without aerial coverage as sailors test out the huge vessels.

– The Guardian – Senior Ministry of Defence analyst says corrosion on new fleet of hunter-killer submarines is ’cause for major concern’.

– Aviation Week – One of the more innovative features of the BAE Systems Global Combat Ship, formally known to the Royal Navy (RN) as the Type 26, might be its name. It could be argued that it’s part of an Orwellian trend toward vague and generic language, but it also (from BAE’s perspective) deals with the fact that the meanings of “frigate” and “destroyer” have become confused, mainly because they were historically defined in terms of multi-class fleets that, for most operators, are a thing of the past. There’s no point in setting up a terminological barrier to export sales, whether a customer wants to seem powerful (destroyer), frugal (frigate) or peace-loving (patrol ship).

Daily Mail – Deadly Hunter Killer submarine is capable of hearing a ship leaving port in New York… while sat underwater in the English channel.

Thanks to Dave for the link!

– Daily Telegraph – Former Navy flagship HMS Ark Royal will be sold on as scrap metal for £3 million as part of a move that the Ministry of Defence has described as “difficult but necessary.

– Defense Aerospace – The latest design of the Royal Navy’s next generation of warships has been unveiled today by the MoD. Images show the basic specification of the Type 26 Global Combat Ship (T26 GCS).

– Daily Telegraph – Britain’s nuclear deterrent is at risk because the Navy does not have enough sailors to man its submarines, Ministry of Defence officials admit.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – It may be the stuff of three-decades-old history, but the Falklands conflict offers warfighting lessons of distinct importance to the U.S. Navy of today.

– Daily Telegraph – There have been 266 fires on the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines in the past 25 years.

– The Economist – The coalition is at odds over plans for new nuclear submarines

– Daily Telegraph – Britain is to forge ahead with a new generation of nuclear weapons with a £1bn contract to be unveiled this week.

– Daily Telegraph – The Royal Navy’s warships will be vulnerable to enemy attack after a key project that allows ships to fire each other’s weapons was dropped.

– Daily Telegraph – The ”largest and most powerful warship” ever built for the Royal Navy has achieved another milestone as a massive section of HMS Queen Elizabeth left port.

– Daily Telegraph – The first female commander of a major Royal Navy warship takes up her post today.

– The Scotsman – An independent Scotland will lose all its Royal Navy contracts, UK ministers have confirmed, in a move which would put 16,000 jobs at risk along with the country’s entire shipbuilding industry. The coalition government warned that if Scotland becomes a “foreign country”, defence contractors could no longer use Scottish yards in their bids.

– Royal Navy – Royal Navy ‘Top Gun’ pilots train to fly US fighters – British Royal Navy pilot Lt Dan Latham is walking out to his aircraft with his American colleague for a training mission that will see them fly through the cloudless skies for hundreds of miles over the desert on a practice bombing raid. Dan, from Ormskirk in Lancashire, is one of the lucky few chosen to fly with his American naval counterparts in the US for four years. The Royal Navy want to ensure the maritime flying skills of their pilots are maintained, until the new British aircraft carriers and the stealth fighter jets due to fly from them are ready.

– Daily Telegraph – A major retreat over aircraft for the Royal Navy’s new carriers will be announced today, abandoning plans to buy the conventional take-off version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, will tell MPs that the Government will now purchase the jump-jet model of the plane instead.

– Daily Telegraph – The Royal Navy no longer has enough warships to dedicate one to fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia all year round, it was reported.

– Defense Technology International – Bill Sweetman describes how if Scotland becomes independent, there may be no place to base the UK’s ballistic missile submarine force.

– Daily Telegraph – A series of errors contributed to the grounding of a nuclear-powered submarine off the west coast of Scotland more than two years ago, a report has found.

– The Economist – “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” asked John Maynard Keynes. David Cameron might feel like quoting the great economist when he tells Parliament, as now seems almost certain, that the government is reversing its decision to buy the aircraft-carrier version of the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35C, rather than the F-35B variant originally ordered by Labour in the 1990s.