Filling the Maritime Patrol Capability Gap

摘要

The House of Commons Defence Committee released Future Maritime Surveillance on September 19, covering options and recommendations on the UK's maritime surveillance requirements. It highlighted that no current or planned MPA capability exists since the premature retirement of the Nimrod MR2 and cancellation of the replacement Nimrod MRA4, and that the planned interim coverage has not been available. According to the report, "[the Ministry of Defence's] intention was to mitigate the impact of the Nimrod cancellation by the use of other military assets on a case by case basis, but acknowledged that there was currently no single asset or collection of assets that offset the resulting capability gap." One solution put forward was to use Hercules as a maritime surveillance platform and to aid search and rescue efforts, but this was not possible because of the shortfalls in the transport fleet.