The Utility of Reserve: The Royal Navy and the Maritime Reserve.

“The Reservist is twice the citizen” – Winston Churchill

Genesis

The Royal Navy (RN) has the Maritime Reserve (MR), a 1* led Fighting Arm¹ (FA), however, it could be argued that it is not taken seriously as a capability and is therefore not value for money.  If the RN were to take the Maritime Reserve seriously, the MR would require a directed operational output, a ‘head mark’, a thought-out function, in conjunction with regular cadre of personnel who are taught the necessary knowledge and experience on how to employ it to enhance naval power.  This article offers options for the output the MR should have in supporting the RN operationally. Its time to move on from the ‘fantasy fleets’. Instead, lets discuss NATO-level, UK Defence-wide, and RN-specific strategy statements to derive function and in turn, elicit discussions of form.  It will not – unlike a recent RUSI² paper – look to use the Royal Naval³ Reserve (RNR) in addressing potential capability gaps in UK Defence.  Though, its potential scope is MR wide, its focus is the RNR, as the largest MR element and the one facing the hardest questions about its future operational utility.  Additionally, this paper is written in the spirit of the Chief of the Defence Staff’s recent direction⁴ on embracing debate from juniors in challenging the status quo.

 “A good Navy is not a provocation to war; it is the surest guaranty of Peace” – Theodore Roosevelt

Function

The RNR/Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) were formed in 1859 and 1903 respectively, to supply sailors in times of war for the RN; the MR now is approximately 3500 people spread across the RNR & Royal Marines Reserve (RMR) and is the only standalone reserve organisation in UK Defence.  The war in Ukraine and recent events in Israel⁵show that Reserves are still vital for delivering national security; internationally their use also mimics how our own Naval Reserves were used during both world wars.  In WW2, 68%⁶ of Naval personnel were Reservists of various kinds⁷, who jokingly referred to their regular counterparts as the “caretakers”⁸.  Such past precedents beg contemporary questions: could today’s RN triple its personnel numbers swiftly in a time of major conflict, and would it need to?  Today, the Maritime Reserve is a mere 10%⁹ of total RN personnel – but if the RN embraced use of reservists as Australia does (30%), could this alleviate personnel gaps too, while being better value for money?

The UK is not currently under an immediate existential threat (barring a catastrophic escalation of the war in Ukraine or entanglement in a US-China conflict).  However, the function of the RNR and wider reserves should be designed around a framework that recognises the possibility of direct interstate conflict – not just the precursory stages such as competition and crisis to ensure our continued national security, as articulated in the most recent Defence Command Paper (the 2023 ‘Refresh’).  The utility of the RNR to the RN is primarily to supply Surge in war while being affordable and Niche in peacetime.  Yet the recent cancelling of training on financial grounds (the infamous “In-Year Measures”), effects from COVID, and Maritime Reserve “Transformation” (a euphemistic label for various top-down reorganisations) has lowered morale, seeing an exodus¹⁰ from the trained strength.

In NATO, there are four¹¹ recognised types of reservists.

• Niche(specialist) capabilities that do not exist, at all or in sufficient strength, in the regular forces.
• Complementary. This is a capability – at the lower end of the operational spectrum – for which the full suite of military competencies is not needed, freeing regular forces.
• Supplementary. This is a capability at the higher end of operations to rotate or reinforce the regular forces.
• Surge. This is an expansion base for mobilisation in a large-scale defence emergency, the traditional Reserve role.

In the Future Reserves 30¹² paper, the role of reservists is articulated as.

• The Reinforcement Reserve – reservists that routinely support defence output and activity, more akin to auxiliaries.
• The Operational Reserve – reservists who are regularly trained and exercised for contingency tasks – a reserve in the true sense of the word.
• The Strategic Reserve – ex-regular and ex-reservists who keep a reserve commitment that can be called upon to generate surge capacity in extreme cases of national threat.

The NATO definitions align to Reinforcement (niche, complementary), Operational (Supplementary), and Strategic (Surge), but notethe UK definitions have now been amended as Active and Strategic.  In the Naval Reserve, this translates into the RNR (Active) and the Royal Fleet Reserve (RFR) (Strategic).  The UK will always require Niche reservists across the warfighting continuum and Surge reservists in crisis and conflict; however, there is a difficult or ignored choice in the RN whether it requires or would accept Complementary and Supplementary reservists as a matter of principle but have previously existed in the Naval Reserves.

In the RN, there is a longstanding quip that RNR stands for “really not required”: an attitude still pervasive across the fleet that the Reserves are a capability the RN does not need and (by implication) should not support.  On occasion, such quips have had some justification: the stereotype of “decorational not operational” reservists, turning up for a bit of ceremonial and cheap drinks still has a few exemplars.  But for an RN with severe personnel shortages and an RNR increasingly composed of those trained to deliver operational value, such quips and stereotypes are generally unhelpful – yet still they pervade and work their way into actual RN posture.  Doctrinally, the word “Reserve” does not appear in the current RN Strategy¹³, breaking the “golden thread” between Maritime Reserve force generation and RN personnel needs; despite all three Services being directed to adopt a “Whole Force” concept via RF30¹⁴.  This is further reinforced by the RN having to unpick the financial cuts to the Maritime Reserve, the ‘in years measures’ at pace, due to the unforeseen impacts on operations, having had no senior reservist to explain which RN capabilities are underpinned by the Maritime Reserve.

This unengaged approach with the Reserve as a capability is not just imprudent and inefficient; it is ironically myopic too.  The Naval Reserves have won the same number of Victoria Crosses as the Parachute Regiment and Royal Marines combined.  During WW2, reservists provided the bulk of the personnel necessary to win the Battle of the Atlantic, and thus keep Britain in the war, ensuring the Allies’ ultimate defeat of Nazi tyranny. Culturally, meanwhile, a favourite film of the RN – ‘The Cruel Sea’ (1953) – a film about Reservists in a Complementary role, and the UK thrills at the exploits of everyone’s favourite fictional naval reservist, James Bond.  These examples highlight the current RN’s contradictions in celebrating reservists’ historical strategic (and thus cultural) significance, but not having the forethought to support, direct, or fully utilise their modern contemporaries.

Considering both its own acute personnel shortages and the growing strategic dangers of a multipolar world full of hostile major powers, the RN should embrace the Reserves as a concept and push for them to be more than just a Niche and Surge capability.  Noting that there is already mission creep outside of those definitions, accepting and preparing for that reality now, is preferrable to having it forced upon us later by necessity of circumstance.  To accept Complimentary and Supplementary Reserves, significant cultural and psychological change needs to occur that challenges the assumption that only a full-time sailor could fulfil significant roles or be trained to – and be kept at – the right technical standards.  Due to significant gaps (people, platforms, and thus aggregate capability) in the RN, “RNR” may offer a form of “Royal Navy Rescue.”

With its “golden thread” severed as described above, the Maritime Reserve published a Maritime Reserve Directive (MRD) in 2020 – “Integrated by Design” – directing several ways forward (not yet updated post FR30 and RN Strat 22).  The MRD’s end-state¹⁵ offers a new spectrum of Terms of Service (TOS) for reservists, aligns the pre-existing RNR structure to the corresponding 1SL Command Plan 19 priorities, and offers a novel approach to talent management.  Yet this approach requires endorsement from functional employers in the RN.  In such endorsement’s absence, the MRD risks becoming a bottom-up attempt to “reverse engineer” the demand signal, inventing Maritime Reserve roles for a “self-licking lollipop” rather than an analysis of the strategic direction from a Whole Force analysis of what the RN needs or how it can/should use reservists.

Now that the MRD “transformations” have nearly been completed, it is increasingly clear to many that the promised benefits have not materialised.  The RNR should continually adapt, of course, but the volume of change – which could fairly be characterised as “everything everywhere all at once” – has had multiple unintended consequences on the offer, morale, and thus the effectiveness of both operational capabilities and support units.  In short, as the RN does not direct the RNR to have a function it cannot therefore fully utilise the benefits of a capability it doesn’t intrinsically plan for – this is not value for money.

  “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” – Sun Tzu

Improving the RN

The RN retains a large “say-do” gap between what senior officers profess about the importance of the reserves and the reality – documented above – of neither including the reserves in the RN strategy and nor integrating reserves into fighting doctrine (BR4487).  The Naval Reserves were formed when the RN was the strongest naval power in the world, with vastly more ships and regular sailors than the current force, yet still saw value in a repository of additional contingent personnel.  The position of a much smaller contemporary force – that, despite some pro-RNR lip-service, the RN can otherwise conduct all potential tasking without looking to a willing pool of pre-trained volunteers – is thus intellectually indefensible.  Put simply, if the mighty RN of the 19^th century saw value in a reserve of trained part-timers, how can the much-diminished RN of the 21^st century not think the same?  This blind spot on a significant capability gap could, at best, be characterised as “optimistic”.  Specifically, an optimism that any conflict of the future will unfold happily in line with the RN’s preferred plans, neglecting several powerful potential enemies’ own say in the matter.  If such conflict or other severe crises do not unfold as the RN hopes, best-case assumptions about the adequacy of an all-regular personnel model will have to be unpicked at pace.  That being the case, it is better to prepare on our own terms than be forced to adapt during a dire national emergency, as shown in Ukraine.

Considering the above assessment, what can be done to prepare the RN to make more extensive and effective use of its Reserve to face a dangerous and demanding future – ensuring value for money / utilisation?  Certain achievable and “low hanging” measures include the following:

• Complete a Whole-Force Estimate on which type and how many Naval Reserves are needed in Niche and Surge capacities, and where Part-Time Volunteer Reservists (PTVR) offer value for money in Complementary and Supplementary capacities. Whether the RN needs Individual Augmentees (IA) or formed units will fall out of this work. A consequence of the whole force estimate may be the replication of all the equivalent regular branches and areas in the RNR, to enable the RFR to better support the fleet and maintain SQEP in ex-regulars, underpinning seamless transfer.
• Revisit the extant RN Strategy and amend to reflect the Whole-Force Estimate and current MOD Reserve direction (FR30). In addition, create a BR 4487 volume that educates and guides the Whole Force about the employment of the Reserve across the spectrum of warfighting.
• Conduct a review of how integrated the Reserve is in the RN, noting the lack of Strategy, Fighting Doctrine, Bridge Card representation, and whether the RN’s lack of commitment to the Reserve is a self-profiling prophecy.
• Teach regular officers and rates about Reserves and the capabilities they support, including the FGEN process/timelines, from early in their own regular training pipelines. Their knowledge and experience should not be by mere osmosis or uninformed stereotype; there should be periodic touchpoints throughout regular career pathways, by design, including both formal instruction and opportunities for informal exchange/exposure.
• Reverse the decision to align Cadet Forces to the Maritime Reserve; this decision undermines the Reserves as a fighting arm. The cadets should be aligned to the URNU, Capt Recruiting or regional commanders e.g., a non-operational part of the RN.
• Re-establish the post of Director Naval Reserves, as a 2-star Volunteer Reservist – with a volunteer reservist background, giving awareness of reservist life’s unique character – to counsel the Navy Board on the employment of Reserves, mitigating the potential damage to operational output from a false understanding of impact, as parts of the RNR underpin Strategic capabilities and routine maritime operations.
• Open all Flag Officer positions to volunteer reservist competition, enabling the RN to benefit from outside skill sets and grow Reserve Flag Officers to 10%.
• Split the Maritime Reserve, placing the RMR under a Colonel Royal Marines Reserve, reporting to HQ Commando Forces, and direct Commander Maritime Reserve (CMR) to become Cdre RNR focusing on the significantly larger RNR/RFR Naval plot.
• The Naval Reserve budget should be largely delegated to the capability areas/branches, empowering the relevant functional owners to grow/deliver the specified outputs and effects. This would also stop the central Maritime Reserve budget being cut without understanding the impact on operations.
• Appoint Cdre RNR as administrative control focusing on infrastructure, administration, recruitment and appoint the relevant part of the RN as the functional control of the managing the branches/capability areas.
• Create a RNR position within the Maritime Operations Centre (MOC) to advise COMOPS on all reservist matters that affect operations.
• Increase the offer by giving all members of the Maritime Reserve dental/health cover in line with the regulars, allowing personnel to maintain their health, improve the offer and mobilise quicker.
• Evaluate the geographic footprint of the RNR as large parts of the UK population are more than 30 minutes away from a Maritime Resereve unit (17 locations); is the Army Reserve (341 locations¹⁶) significantly larger than the RNR because of need, or that it is much easier to fit around a work/personal life because the locations are closer? The RNR has been bigger in the past in footprint and size; with significant gaps in the current RN, expanding¹⁷ (proposed new locations in footnote) the Reserve is potentially a cost-effective way of supporting operational tempo, supplies a firm base for responding to conflict (including utilisation of the RFR), and brings us closer to 5-Eyes’ peers Reserve composition enhancing naval power. This expansion is based on a 30-minute¹⁸ travel time, population density¹⁹, the existing reserves footprint, and the historic footprint of the RNR/RN at strategic ports. This broader footprint would enable rapid expansion of the RN, if required in an existential crisis, as every reserve unit is a phase 1 establishment.

“Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.”  – Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

RNR Evolution

The RNR today is not in the best place due to pauses in training and recent cuts to FR20’s promised funding.  In addition to, constant centrally mandated change to long-established administrative and CLM chains that has broken (without adequately replacing) hitherto-useful processes.  A regular joining the RNR could be forgiven for thinking that the RNR exists only to support itself, and that its two core outputs are delivering “Naval Core Training” online modules and completing its own HQ’s staff work.  Over the last decade, the offer has been eroded to the point where people are disappearing off the books – either leaving altogether or still being nominally enrolled but with no substantive activity.  As people do not join the Service to replicate the mandated learning or administrative joys of their day jobs; people join the RNR for adventure, development, and to serve.  This is not being delivered; degrading retention, morale, and thus the RNR’s ability to offer operational utility to the Navy and nation it exists to serve.

Given this bleak assessment, what else – beyond the suggestions above for the RN’s better employment of the Maritime Reserve – can be done for the Maritime Reserve’s own improvement of itself (value for money, retention, morale etc)?

• Publish a refreshed MRD to align with FR30, RN Strat 2022, and rectify all the lesson’s identified from the earlier MRD transformations which have not worked as intended.
• Re-create esprit de corps in the RNR, including by re-establishing the RNR as a branded fighting arm (with a logo), expand military competition to all functional skills (best unit competition), not just CLM and celebrate – rather than disavowal – of the differences between reservist and regular service.
• Review the MRD end-state through the lens of career management. Does the MR have enough career managers and is the aim of “supports unconventional and unconstrained talent management processes” being met? Are there too many examples of – computer says no.
• Amend policy to allow anyone who has contacted a recruitment channel to attend Reserve units as quickly as possible (after a suitable security check), as the first quality we look for in Reservists (or regulars) should not be the perseverance to wade through our recruitment process. This could also be extended to people in the regular channel.
• CMRHQ should be remoulded to support units and remove bureaucracy, thereby enabling units to deliver a compelling reservist offer. Measuring a unit’s delivery of the offer is important, but not to the detriment of the delivery itself.
• CMRHQ should be staffed by volunteer reservists (who support their operational capability training) or RNR-informed regulars only, not RFR on FTRS, since the latter cannot have a full understanding of the challenges of reservist life and are therefore unable to advise CMR appropriately.
• The core function of a Reservist should be supporting their capability/branch, not their unit. Supporting a unit should be viewed as a secondary function with advancement based on operational output or potential operational output. If merit is shown supporting the RN operationally, the same people can support the RNR, – genuine operational experience should always trump potential operational utility shown in the reserve.
• Amend all policies to align to the Whole Force concept, as per the MRD, e.g., enforce Select, Train, Promote, rather than the MR focus of Train, Select, Promote. Another example would be to allow volunteer reservists to complete regular courses if there is a benefit to the Whole Force and the reservist.
• The MRD has sent “General Warfare” (GW) and “Information Warfare” (IW) on quite different paths – Every specialisation should have an SO1, to champion (and hold to account) that operational capability.
• Create a programme of continued professional development (CPD) for volunteer reservists focusing on civilian qualifications, maritime sports with naval applicability (e.g., sailing, diving, etc), CLM, and Strategy to incentivise attendance and improve the Service.
• The loss of regular staff to run the administrative side of Reserve units should be reversed. Not only would this support harmony opportunities for the regulars, but it would also free Reservists to focus on their core function. The regular staff could also be used to deliver training too, as SMEs.
• Re-fund the original waterfront plan for RHIBs and simulators at waterfront inland units, respectively; to increase the offer, build maritime awareness and skills, and meet the MRD objectives.
• Each unit should be equipped with an Amber Zone (Secret terminals, phones and VTC), Weapons (Rifles, Pistols, GPMGs, and HMGs etc), WECDIS terminals and in-house accommodation incentivising attendance with activities that cannot be replicated on teams and build the broad-based “militarisation” skills necessary in a reserve. This will enable functional training on weekends and evenings, maintaining SQEP.
• Open up Common Appointments (CAPPS) and E2 jobs to Reservists. Not only would this allow the variety and depth of experience offered by RNR personnel beyond the strict confines of their ‘trade SQEP’, but also go some way to filling gapping that exists across Defence in these interesting,yet often lower priority fill posts.

 “If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone” – Confucius

 Conclusion

The RN has two choices to make on how to achieve value for money/utilisation: how to integrate the Naval Reserves deliberately into their long-term planning, and whether they are prepared to relinquish the space for Supplementary and Complementary capabilities to support the whole force by design.  Niche and Surge reservists make practical and financial sense, due to cost and necessity; however, should the RN also cede the cultural, technological, and psychological space to allow the Reserve to fulfil Complimentary and Supplementary tasks?  Will it have the time to deliberately plan how to use reservists in an existential crisis?  The evolving strategic landscape of resurgent great-power competition suggests the RN cannot just optimistically assume that its current, already-overstretched pool of regular personnel will be adequate for all potential contingencies.  When the sorts of contingencies that may need Supplementary and Complementary reservists materialise, they are likely to do so at disorientating speed and with high attendant stakes.

For its own part, the Maritime Reserve – as distinct from the rest of the RN – has a choice to make too: namely, how to arrest the decline of the RNR, noting the increasing bureaucratic burden on volunteer sailors/officers and the current generationally low morale.  Does the MR have the time to wait and see if retention and enthusiasm pick up, or should it take positive action to reverse the impact the “transformations” have had on morale, retention, naval power, and – ultimately – the strategic RN capabilities they underpin?  A re-worked MRD will drive actions that aggregate into an effective Naval Reserve that delivers and keeps people, but such policy work is only a first step on a long road to restoring esprit de corps, a compelling retention offer, and thus an RNR ready to provide “Royal Navy Rescue” as the UK faces a perilous strategic future.

1. Surface, Royal Marines, Submarine, Fleet Air Arm, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and Maritime Reserve – RN Bridge Card.
2. https://static.rusi.org/op-maritime-reserves-grasping-the-opportunity.pdf
3. Naval not Navy, as is widely misused in the RN internally and externally.
4. https://warontherocks.com/2023/09/a-chat-with-britains-top-officer-adm-radakin/
5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/07/israel-gaza-timeline-videos-maps/
6. HC Deb 26 Feb 1974, vol 433, col 295.
7. Just over a million people – 923,000 men and 86,000 women – served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. They enlisted after a huge recruitment campaign necessitated by the need for a massive injection of people. To this end, thousands of ‘hostilities only’ personnel joined the service, and these inexperienced recruits would play a vital role for the duration of the war. Hostilities Only, Brian Lavery – 978-1844861460
8. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 16, No. 3, The Second World War: Part 2 (Jul. 1981), pp. 487-499 (13 pages)
9. RUSI, Maritime Reserves – Grasping the opportunity, Figure 1, pg. 8.
10. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6576f83b83c8bc000dd7d39b/UK_Reserve_Forces_Annual_Report_2023.pdf
11. https://www.act.nato.int/opportunities/national-reserve-forces-committee-nrfc/
12. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reserve-forces-review-2030
13. RN Strategy – Decade of Delivery.
14. MOD, Defence’s Response to a More Contested and Volatile World, p. 23.
15. “An auxiliary naval force of Maritime Reserve of trained and motivated people, formed in a structure that supports unconventional and unconstrained talent management processes, delivering for Defence, for the Nation and for its members either part-time or full-time in support of maritime operations worldwide”.
16. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7904eb40f0b679c0a07e5d/reserve2020_leaflet.pdf
17. Suggested expansion at Aberdeen (INDUS @RMR), Kingston-Upon-Hull (GALATEA @ 4x AR), Bangor (CONWAY @ 1xAR Caernarfon) Manchester (SALFORD @ URNU/RMR), Brighton (SUSSEX @ 1x AR), Derry/Londonderry (SEA EAGLE @ 1xAR), Exeter (PELLEW @ CTCRM), Ipswich (BADGER @ 1x AR), Lowestoft (EUROPA @ 1x AR), Milford Haven (HARRIER @ 1x AR ), Sheffield (FORGE @ URNU), Wandsworth (ST VINCENT @ RMR), still leaving Southeast London as an obvious gap, FERRET could also be utilised for Milton Keynes, Luton and Bedford for all capabilities, not just intelligence, and the choice whether to utilise the URNU locations in Oxford and/or Cambridge to attract high calibre recruits could be taken.
18. https://app.traveltime.com/reachable/within/30/minutes/driving/radius
19. https://www.tomforth.co.uk/circlepopulations/