The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter overlander
- Start date
To avoid anymore teddy throwing incidents I will change the subject...............
I've not been able to determine what will happen to the PAAMS test and evaluation rig currently fixed to the barge off France. I'd assumed this would be used for hull number six, yet can't find any confirmation?
If this is not to happen, and based on the recent announcement concerning Ark Royal and the GR9's, would it not be feasible to relocate the entire package to a land based application overlooking Mount Pleasant airbase? It could then provide surveillance, detection and guidance for the proposed land based version of CAAM, or longer range palletised version of Aster 30. Cheaper than sending a T45 to the South Atlantic should tensions increase and it would provide a useful addition to the four resident Typhoons (named Faith, Hope, Charity and Desperation) and RA manned Starstreak (assuming Rapier is retired).
I've not been able to determine what will happen to the PAAMS test and evaluation rig currently fixed to the barge off France. I'd assumed this would be used for hull number six, yet can't find any confirmation?
If this is not to happen, and based on the recent announcement concerning Ark Royal and the GR9's, would it not be feasible to relocate the entire package to a land based application overlooking Mount Pleasant airbase? It could then provide surveillance, detection and guidance for the proposed land based version of CAAM, or longer range palletised version of Aster 30. Cheaper than sending a T45 to the South Atlantic should tensions increase and it would provide a useful addition to the four resident Typhoons (named Faith, Hope, Charity and Desperation) and RA manned Starstreak (assuming Rapier is retired).
Please don't attempt to bait others like this. If you wanted to be mature you'd have changed the subject without any need for references to "teddy throwing incidents".To avoid anymore teddy throwing incidents I will change the subject...............
We're all grown ups, let's act like it. Okay?
riksavage, on occasion even I find that some of your posts do come across as baiting, when you are threatened by a post. Could you please take that as constructive feedback? Please just dial back a little, there's usually space to express opinions but identify it as such. Bonza's already requested for civility and we'll like to help redirect the focus to other areas.To avoid anymore teddy throwing incidents I will change the subject...............
Many thanks.
weasel1962
New Member
Re:
The question is whether RN can sell off the carrier even at cost?
GBP2.9b is still a massive investment for any country, India/China included. And the extent manufacturer's warranties will continue to apply and at what cost will be issues that needs to be crossed.
If it can't be sold or possibly sold at a massive write-off, then it could make economic sense not to build it.
With all the cut-backs recently on most country's defence budget, I'd find it hard-pressed to identify any prospective buyers of carriers at that size and cost.
Consider that any buyer would immediately have an equivalent or greater carrier capability than the UK (eg in the case of India) narrows the list still further.
The question is whether RN can sell off the carrier even at cost?
GBP2.9b is still a massive investment for any country, India/China included. And the extent manufacturer's warranties will continue to apply and at what cost will be issues that needs to be crossed.
If it can't be sold or possibly sold at a massive write-off, then it could make economic sense not to build it.
With all the cut-backs recently on most country's defence budget, I'd find it hard-pressed to identify any prospective buyers of carriers at that size and cost.
Consider that any buyer would immediately have an equivalent or greater carrier capability than the UK (eg in the case of India) narrows the list still further.
If the RN has not operated a serious fixed wing capability for 14 years, by 2020, there must be a big question mark over the commissioning of PW. This is 10 years off and maybe 2-3 elections. With a less warmongering Labour government they may just quietly dispose put it down.
This really highlight the folly of having any airpower in the hands of another service. Quite apart from fighting for scarce resource, the consequence to the RAF of a fully equipped carrier would have been redundancy. How surprising it is the two biggest aircraft casualties have such an influence on the RN, and yet are under RAF control.
It always made me mad that the RAF claims saving western civilisation in 1940, but ignores the fact the reason Britain’s armed forces punched significantly below its weight for the first 3 years of the WW1 was the behaviour of the RAF in the interwar period.
Well if the RAF had its way there would have been no Fighter Command in 1940. The world can thank Chamberlain for that. However it is unfair to claim that the Army and Navy were underequipped because of the RAF. The UK had to have some kind of air force and it was overall defence funding decisions that lead to the interwar drawdown.
But I agree with you about this being the thin edge of the wedge for the UK forces. This could be a clear first step to getting rid of the CVF and F-35 altogether. Clearly if these particular investment decisions could have been made after late 2008 they wouldn’t have been. If they can find a buyer for one or two they will be sold and the F-35 cancelled altogether.
That is very disappointing - but that is also the "worst case" scenario. It does show the scale of procurement wastage which will hopefully change in future.
However a single state of the art SSN could cause carnage to that fleet (but how likely is it going to come up against one?)
Sampanviking
Banned Member
Probably the most sensible and well reasoned argument on the subject I have read since the announcement. It is cancellation, but cancellation with intelligence.
weasel1962
New Member
Re:
The scotsman with the complicated carrier movement plan...
Aircraft carriers: Timeline - Scotsman.com News
The scotsman with the complicated carrier movement plan...
Aircraft carriers: Timeline - Scotsman.com News
Well I shouldn't have mention the RAF/WW2 but they were not as underfunded as they claim it was the tactical doctrine. Compare the ease with which Japanese army aircraft dispatched POW & Repulse with the hopeless efforts of the RAF (and FAA) to stop the Channel Dash in 1942 (not 1939 when it might have been more understandable!).
I agree I don't think it will take he RAF much time to destroy the case for a handful of F35c,. I saw Fox on the BBC yesterday trying to blame Labour for the poor thinking behind the CVF, and the interview said but this surely is a defence chiefs issue. Fox was stoped dead and was speachless, it was written all over his face this was a RN mess. Then at the suggestion of an public enquiry he change the subject.
If they had any honour they would resign, if this Government had any sense they would sack them (not for what they have done but that the might do it again. This is 5.2bn totally wasted, we could build a helicopter carrier for a tenth the cost.
I knew this would happen - QE as a helicopter carrier and PoW as CATOBAR then QE being mothballed once PoW is complete.
The carriers should have been designed and built as CATOBAR right from the beginning.
What a farce!
Luckily I no longer live in the UK and will never do so again. The incompetence is mind blowing - a large aircraft carrier with no aircraft! :laugh
The carriers should have been designed and built as CATOBAR right from the beginning.
What a farce!
Luckily I no longer live in the UK and will never do so again. The incompetence is mind blowing - a large aircraft carrier with no aircraft! :laugh
They were Japanese Navy aircraft and it is pretty hard for the RAAF (453 Squadron would have provided the top cover) to cover the RN squadron if the bloody Admiral in charge does not task them to do so… choosing to maintain radio silence rather than task for coverage. Even after sighting their Jap shad the Admiral did not request air cover for 1 hour 20 minutes. It took an hour for the fighters to arrive but by then it was too late. If he had requested air coverage after the sighting of the shad the RAAF fighters would have been on hand to deal with the Jap bombers
LOL military chiefs are just like civil servants these days. Honour… please. Of course you could keep your two CVFs and have proper STOVL air wings to fly from them. Just got to give up the Trident.
We've had explicit denials of assumptions you've made in that comparison, & others are based on press speculation unsupported by anything coming out of the MoD.
You've omitted the RN/RFA amphibious fleet, & one carrier, & cut the escort numbers by two more than the leaks say.
I’ve omitted nothing. I’ve kept it to the major surface units for a very reasonable reason (clarity) and if someone from the UK wants to count up every barge and yardboat just so they don’t feel so bad then please do so. But don’t expect me to do so or accuse me of some kind of major oversight in compiling that list.
As to the number of the carriers and escorts this is based on press reporting. It is clear that HM Govt. have been feeding Fleet Street accurate information as a means of reducing the blows of these severe cuts. There is a clear desire to sell one of the carriers (joint Franco British carrier force) which would probably be available for a very reasonable $3 billion (USD) all risk taken by the UK. Even without a buyer the MoD plans are to mothball HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2019. Sounds like one carrier to me…
Any other Brits out there want to have a whinge at me the messenger? Except for my rebuttal it might make you feel better but it’s not my actions causing you this pain. Harden up.
Lets get real the RN need to really use the next few years to drive through efficiencies so they can try and reverse some of these decisions. T26 hae got be cheaper and functional, forget MARS or what ever it has become, focus on just the Waves & Forts II,
I don't think that anyone is denying that the cuts are pretty bad - it is to be expected after all. What UK based people are saying is that the Media over here (and i do not know which part of the world you are in) have a tendancy to sensationalise things.
It is important to remember that these cuts are for the next 5 years or so. I am not looking at things with rose tinted glasses, when a capability goes it rarely gets replaced. However, it would be premature to suggest that the carriers and planes will be binned over the next few decades. More will be known in 75 minutes or so.
Finally, when it comes to defence. Most journalists are idiots. Most of what they say is complese nonsense!
Most journalists are lazy, its the Admirals that are the idiots, trying to get two 65,000t carrier through, selecting the wrong aircraft both FRS1 & F35 b or c, and giving in over the FA2, Who knows if the RN had joined in the Eurofighter programme the French might have stayed in. May corners could have been cut to save money over the last 20 years. If we had ordered less assault ships, spread Astute/T45 over a longer period and built 50,000t/25knot ships one after the other. You only have to look as the original MARS concept to ask what planet where these people on. But just to prove what fools they are we will embark on the now pointless T26.
LOL. Spot on. CVF has been scuppered by the same disease that brought down CVA-01. Though in this case the capability creep is size rather than systems. If they’d followed Ocean with a class of four or more LHD type ships perhaps in well dock and no well dock versions you’d still have a flexible, capable force.
A conventional powered Charles De Gaulle or a LHA-6 USS America sized ship (obviously cheaper). But why built two so close together. The could have gone for far more cut down versions of the T45. This top tier or nothing approach is madness...well now they have nothing, actually worst than nothing as 5.2bn on rubbish.
If this was in business I would expect sackings. Either way if we are going to be a coastal defence force the top brass really needs to be cut harshly