Big E,
It may be stupidity, lunacy if you like but it will be a VAST leap in capability to what we have now so I suppose we should be grateful for that small fact.
Personally I thought the Navalised Typhoon should have been developed years ago but if we are honest, it is just symptamatic about the level of mismanagement of the last 30 years.
We balls'd up Suez, went far too NATO orientated never again to look eastwards.Big carriers were culled in the 1960's and the Ark soldiered on until 1978 (?) with Phantoms and Buccs. That ship alone would have deterred the Falklands.
Our Politicians were conned with the idea of the "through deck cruiser" eg the Invincible class and we were stuck with the Sea Harrier. Sharkey Ward the Falklands vet, refers to its great close in handling in his book, its duffing up of phantoms and even F15s in close turning fights but that was with 1970's technology.
Anyway...we narrowly win the Falklands campaign. Any intelligent politician would perhaps say we needed to reassert our independence to act alone..eg carriers and amphibious ships and adequate escorts....but no. The 1980's was spent basing 55,000 troops in Germany and 20 squadrons of RAF when the Germans spent far less of their vast GDP than the UK.
We posessed 2/3rds of the NATO frigate force (similar ships that were mauled in the Falklands), had 18 SSN's and up to 19 SSKs planned. In short a powerful anti submarine force that was aimed solely to keep the Atlantic open from Soviet Subs.
Whilst Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan (a great man in my opinion) coseyed up to one another, we in the UK became far to tunnel vision in our defence perspective...the soviets.
To make matters worse the peace dividend post cold war was napped up without concern that the same weapons, eg small carriers, the Tornado F3 etc were not much use outside the european arena.
We still have 25,000 troops in Germany, why? the cost must be massive. Germany doesnt need defending anymore. In my opinion the RN and the RAF (vulcan, victor etc) lost its power projection because we did more than the average other western european country in the defence of Europe. Meanwhile the irksomely independent french did their own thing, built homegrown aircraft and even a nuclear carrier.
At the current slow rate of change I hope that in 20 years the Uk forces are much more able to power project. Two carriers with F35B with stand off missiles such as Storm Shadow, AEW etc. Type 45's for airdefence and adapted Type 45's for ASW, Land attack with Tomahawk to supplement the Type 23 and Astutes leading into the Trident repalcement to keep our industry viable. Add the now more capable amphibious force, an RAF with Typhoon, some F35C for deep strike and the new UCAV's.
We should be in a far better position to do what we want to in the UK than for the last 30-40 years.
We have lacked a continuity in defence. The US whatever side of congress has always recognised the need for carriers and vast nuclear arsenals whereas politicians in the UK hunkered down during the cold war stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Two carriers may be insignificant compared to the US Navy, but we have 60 million people, you have 300 million and about 30 times the land space.
I am actually quite positive for the future. During the 1980's a labour win would have meant vast cuts in defence, scrapping of the nuclear deterrent and possibly a pull out of NATO, we have seen 10 years of labour and they have kept up many projects started under the Tories, had the balls to deploy to warzone and are keeping the deterrent. We just need a period of consensus across the political spectrum to keep spendding at the present level or with a small increase.
It may be stupidity, lunacy if you like but it will be a VAST leap in capability to what we have now so I suppose we should be grateful for that small fact.
Personally I thought the Navalised Typhoon should have been developed years ago but if we are honest, it is just symptamatic about the level of mismanagement of the last 30 years.
We balls'd up Suez, went far too NATO orientated never again to look eastwards.Big carriers were culled in the 1960's and the Ark soldiered on until 1978 (?) with Phantoms and Buccs. That ship alone would have deterred the Falklands.
Our Politicians were conned with the idea of the "through deck cruiser" eg the Invincible class and we were stuck with the Sea Harrier. Sharkey Ward the Falklands vet, refers to its great close in handling in his book, its duffing up of phantoms and even F15s in close turning fights but that was with 1970's technology.
Anyway...we narrowly win the Falklands campaign. Any intelligent politician would perhaps say we needed to reassert our independence to act alone..eg carriers and amphibious ships and adequate escorts....but no. The 1980's was spent basing 55,000 troops in Germany and 20 squadrons of RAF when the Germans spent far less of their vast GDP than the UK.
We posessed 2/3rds of the NATO frigate force (similar ships that were mauled in the Falklands), had 18 SSN's and up to 19 SSKs planned. In short a powerful anti submarine force that was aimed solely to keep the Atlantic open from Soviet Subs.
Whilst Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan (a great man in my opinion) coseyed up to one another, we in the UK became far to tunnel vision in our defence perspective...the soviets.
To make matters worse the peace dividend post cold war was napped up without concern that the same weapons, eg small carriers, the Tornado F3 etc were not much use outside the european arena.
We still have 25,000 troops in Germany, why? the cost must be massive. Germany doesnt need defending anymore. In my opinion the RN and the RAF (vulcan, victor etc) lost its power projection because we did more than the average other western european country in the defence of Europe. Meanwhile the irksomely independent french did their own thing, built homegrown aircraft and even a nuclear carrier.
At the current slow rate of change I hope that in 20 years the Uk forces are much more able to power project. Two carriers with F35B with stand off missiles such as Storm Shadow, AEW etc. Type 45's for airdefence and adapted Type 45's for ASW, Land attack with Tomahawk to supplement the Type 23 and Astutes leading into the Trident repalcement to keep our industry viable. Add the now more capable amphibious force, an RAF with Typhoon, some F35C for deep strike and the new UCAV's.
We should be in a far better position to do what we want to in the UK than for the last 30-40 years.
We have lacked a continuity in defence. The US whatever side of congress has always recognised the need for carriers and vast nuclear arsenals whereas politicians in the UK hunkered down during the cold war stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Two carriers may be insignificant compared to the US Navy, but we have 60 million people, you have 300 million and about 30 times the land space.
I am actually quite positive for the future. During the 1980's a labour win would have meant vast cuts in defence, scrapping of the nuclear deterrent and possibly a pull out of NATO, we have seen 10 years of labour and they have kept up many projects started under the Tories, had the balls to deploy to warzone and are keeping the deterrent. We just need a period of consensus across the political spectrum to keep spendding at the present level or with a small increase.
