Jim Martin Posted October 1, 2007 Posted October 1, 2007 I dont disagree with your sentiment Jim, but I think writing the problem off as merely problems with worthless bums and singles mums is a little simplistic. Its often forgotten that Margaret Thatcher herself (hardly a fan of layabouts) put in pretty drastic naval cuts herself to free up cash to rebuild the army. Much as we like to posture as a maritime nation, we really havent had the need for one since we lost the Empire. In fact, there is a good case of saying that maintaining the navy is the reason why we lost the empire, but I think thats probably being a bit cynical. As for problems with the army, claiming they are recent problems is at variance with the facts. There were deep seated problems with the army dating back to 1994 and 'Options for Change'. That in American parlance was a Republican administration. The plan from that point on was to live off the fat accumulated in the cold war. That has long run out. If there is a flaw in New Labours strategy, it isnt the amount of money they spend of defence thats the problem. The problem is that we are fighting too many wars for the cash thats available. Afghanistan and Iraq were after all supposed to be over by now. Stuart, in my years on this grate sight and my perusing ARRSE, it seems pretty obvious that British military capability has been on a steady year-by-year decline since 1945. Even accounting for the necessary draw-down that all allies made after the war, the shortchanging the Exchequer made of the forces during the Cold War was unconscionable (our Congress too, for that matter). During that same period of time, I'll betcha my next paycheck that "entitlements" or whatever you folks over there call them, grew exponentially (as did ours). As far as "entitlements" go, I'd say the man or woman who signs up to fight your battles for you is "entitled" to the best his country can provide. All others are "entitled" to go find a f***ing job and stop looking to the government (yours or ours) for a handout. I fully understand that Maggie's gov't, the Major gov't, and other Tory gov'ts have been part of the problem. It doesn't seem that the Brits have a party that advertises itself as the defense party, like we do here. And even our Republicans aren't without sin, when it comes to that.
Chris Werb Posted October 1, 2007 Posted October 1, 2007 Stuart, in my years on this grate sight and my perusing ARRSE, it seems pretty obvious that British military capability has been on a steady year-by-year decline since 1945. It's a lot more complex than that. The regular forces were run down massively 1945-49 then there was a massive build-up culminating in 1954. Reserve forces were reinstated massively in 1947 but relied on volunteers - they were fleshed out with Z-reservists NS conscripts in the 1952-54 period (they remained so thereafter but the Z-reservists and conscripts weren't mobilised for camps after 1954). In some ways our forces are more powerful and better equipped vs the potential opposition than at any time since 1945. I read a very pessimistic article on how we couldn't do the Falklands again by an RAF officer in AFM - he left out massive improvements like Tomahawk, Apache, GMLRS, Javelin, vastly better shipboard point defences and land-based SAMs, universal issue of NV (including, increasingly, thermal) etc. In 1982 it took a phenomenal effort in a very risky mission to put one thousand pound bomb roughly where we wanted it in 1982. Now we could probably put fifty 1000lb warheads exactly where we wanted them, with essentially no chance of loss. Land a few M270s on the islands and we can destroy anything, anywhere anytime we wanted to. It's hard to put a price on that kind of capability compared to the large numbers of often very dated, inadequately armed surface ships we had 25 years ago.
harryRIEDL Posted October 2, 2007 Posted October 2, 2007 just to say i great trouble believing this report as it originated from Warships IFR and has seems to be taken as fact by the mainstream press their is no evidence what so ever about the cut in frigerts and seems to have no evidence except for its a Labor plot to destroy the RN no named sources nunthing no sources what so ever
Kenneth P. Katz Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 I haven't been to Great Britain since 1995, but unless it's geography has changed quite dramatically, it's still an island, and island nations would probably benefit from a capable navy.
Corinthian Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 According to the information I have in front of me, you guys have one WWII era DE, and three ex-British light corvettes. What the hell happened? I know your F-5s fell apart, but Jesus.... - John I dunno about the DE, but the 3 light corvettes I take it as the Peacocks...? I didn't know they were classified as such. My Janes Recog says them Peacocks are patrol craft, not exactly corvettes. They are still working, or at least two of them are. Mighty pretty ships IMO (considering that we don't have much in the way of warships ) We also have Cyclones but IIRC they are used by our Coast Guard not PN. I must also correct myself: we do have larger ships than corvettes. However, these are LSTs.... And we still don't have missile-armed craft....
swerve Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 Like it or loathe it (and most politicians appear to loathe it) we havent been an island since the Chunnel opened. Personally, id rather see our navy developed for coastal defence along the lines the Swedes have developed theirs. Its not like they have an insignificant naval history either. One bomb, & the tunnel's wrecked & impassable.
Chris Werb Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 One bomb, & the tunnel's wrecked & impassable. And hopefully we already have several bombs in place ready to go.
Chris Werb Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 I haven't been to Great Britain since 1995, but unless it's geography has changed quite dramatically, it's still an island, and island nations would probably benefit from a capable navy. That's why we're buying two CVs that are a lot more capable than the three through-deck cruisers they're replacing (and arguably the rest of our surface navy combined). Frigates made a certain amount of sense during the Cold War - they're now too gold plated, yet inefficient for most roles and outright useless in others. You'll find this out if you ever play Harpoon
Chris Werb Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 I also find it increasingly hard to find a convincing maritime threat that a coastal navy wouldnt be adequate enough to defeat. The last time the powers that be though that, one just turned up uninvited: http://www.fuerzasnavales.com/
swerve Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 .... Frigates made a certain amount of sense during the Cold War - they're now too gold plated, yet inefficient for most roles and outright useless in others. You'll find this out if you ever play Harpoon Which is why I think we'd be better off replacing our current escorts with 1) a smaller number of more capable ships (e.g. Type 45 . . . ) & 2) a larger number of smaller, cheaper ships, which could be equipped for specific roles, & quickly re-roled if required. HMS Clyde (http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.5953) with slightly heavier armament & a light armed helicopter would be as good as a frigate at chasing drug smugglers & pirates, & a fraction of the cost to buy & operate. Something slightly bigger could do what our frigates actually do most of the time, cheaper, freeing up money for other things the Navy needs.
swerve Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 The last time the powers that be though that, one just turned up uninvited: http://www.fuerzasnavales.com/ I think this is what you really mean - http://www.armada.mde.es/ArmadaPortal/ Official site.
DB Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 And hopefully we already have several bombs in place ready to go.I think that depends on where you think "in place" should be. I'd hope that they hadn't actually put explosives in place inside the tunnel - too risky. Just have a couple of HE wagons available to put a decent hole in the "roof" and let the sea fill the hole. David
Guest Charles Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 True, but they are talking of building another one. Why?; they have yet to pay off the current beastie as it is. So long as its down there with you chaps South of the Border; I'll be happy up here in my Green paradise . Of course, it could be another French plot to alleviate those issues that they are having all the time in Sangete (ex sp) Charles
FirstOfFoot Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 The British armed forces are primarily built for high intensity very short term conflicts. Pretty much the exact reverse of the situation we now find ourselves in, and indeed the reverse of the situation for most of the cold war. One cynic has said Britain finally prepared to fight the cold war 2 weeks before it ended. I think they are wrong, I think we are still trying to do it today. Not quite. The British Army was always very heavy in infantry, due to the demands of Northern Ireland; remember that for over two decades, 1/3 of the British Infantry was on operations in NI at any one time, in addition to us meeting our NATO "cold war" obligations in BAOR. It would be naive to think that the NI "peace dividend" didn't have an impact on the cuts from SDR in the late 1990s; and the recent cuts in FAS were about aligning the size of our teeth to the capacity of our tail (when IMHO it should have been the other way around). You could argue that having finished its long-term, low-intensity war in the late 1990s, the Treasury insisted that if the Army wanted to do that high-intensity stuff with the shiny expensive gear, it should reconfigure itself to be more in line with other high-intensity armies - i.e. less infantry.
Kensuke Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 (edited) That's why we're buying two CVs that are a lot more capable than the three through-deck cruisers they're replacing (and arguably the rest of our surface navy combined). Frigates made a certain amount of sense during the Cold War - they're now too gold plated, yet inefficient for most roles and outright useless in others. You'll find this out if you ever play Harpoon That's not true if you're too cheap-ass to build a decent destroyer. What type performed better in the Falklands? I'll agree that frigates really made more sense in the Cold War, but budgetary constraints mean they're not going anywhere anytime soon in most navies that don't have the initials U and S in front of them. - John Edited October 4, 2007 by Kensuke
Junior FO Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 (edited) ... Edited September 19, 2024 by Junior FO
Anixtu Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 (edited) True, but they are talking of building another one. I think at the end of the day even if the tunnel didnt exist, it would be rather difficult today to isolate ourselves from the rest of Europe even if we wanted to, particularly since the advent of the Helicopter. I also find it increasingly hard to find a convincing maritime threat that a coastal navy wouldnt be adequate enough to defeat. Even in ww2 I gather Uboats didnt want to use the channel as a rat run. Stuart, just admit it, your real problem with the Royal Navy is the competition for budget £billions. The sooner you recognise that the real enemy is the RAF the better. Edited October 4, 2007 by Anixtu
Xavier Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 Why? Lots of structures have/had explosives built into them for decades without any problems. I thought you guys only had the bombholes ready in your tunnels and bridges with the bombs in a bunker nearby, or was that only the fuses?
Anthony EJW Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 And on that , I totally agree with you. Id look up some of the recent debate regarding Browns anouncement of pulling out troops from Basra during the Tory party conference. Naturally the torys are hopping mad that Browns using British troops to win votes in the imprending election, and neglect to realise they were happy to do the same in the aftermath of the Falklands. On those last points you are spot on. It is also about time we had our own GI bill, but it seems not only are we happy short changing our own veterans, but we are quite happy to screw those in other countries who have fought for us. You should look at some of the debates on Arrse regarding the Gurkha veterans. I don't really want to defend the Tories (who I dislike nearly as much as Neu Labour) but I don't think Brown's cynical anouncement of a troop reduction in Basra really compares to the post Falklands boost that Thatcher got for having successfully liberated British citizens and territory from a foreign invasion- and causing a fascist government to collapse in the process. I think that the New Tories call for an inquiry into the war that happened last year (you know, the one that they voted for...) is a better comparison. I fully agree with you as regards the treatment of Gurkha veterans- its disgraceful. I know chris, the problem is that basing about a 3rd of our defence procurement around a requirement that has arisen 2 times in 60 years is something I find a bit troubling, particularly when we are sending young men into combat in warmed over 40 year old APCs and seem unable to put enough funds into military houseing or build dedicated Military hospitals.. Compared to the vast sums budgeted for other projects the two new carriers are actually quite cheap, coming in at a "meagre" £4 billion, compared to the price tag for FRES which comes in at £14 billion. Lets not even go into the huge sums of money wasted on "EU army" projects that were almost entirely either cancelled or massively over deadline and over budget.
DB Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 Why? Lots of structures have/had explosives built into them for decades without any problems.Obviously I don't know anything about the war preparations as applied to things like bridges in Switzerland, but I'd suggest that a risk analysis taking as its basis the possibility of a failure drowning two or more train loads of people, versus provision of suitable demo equipment that could be emplaced in a couple of hours or so isn't likely to result in the higher risk option being selected. David
Junior FO Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 (edited) ... Edited September 19, 2024 by Junior FO
swerve Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 (edited) You don't have any undersea tunnels. Blowing a bridge is a relatively small affair. Sub-alpine tunnels are bigger, but blowing one end does not automatically kill everyone inside it. They can still get out the other end, & the tunnel isn't too hard to repair afterwards. Letting the sea into the Channel Tunnel, on the other hand, is both certain death for everyone in transit & very difficult to reverse. Edited October 4, 2007 by swerve
Anthony EJW Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 (edited) I make it concious effort to support the Liberals now, in the secure knowledge they will never take office and I have to feel guilty about having voting for them. Ah, the party that is against the undemocratic concentration of power in unaccountable bodies but is for us being dictated to by a bunch of unelected beauracrats in Brussels. In all fairness I do agree with a fair bit of what the Lib Dems say and I do think they have some good ideas but their unabashed pro-EU intergration stance has really soured me off the party. Point taken. Its not that I actually think the Falklands were a mistake to retake, in fact it was vital to British interests that we did. However as John Nott pointed out in his memoirs, whilst he would happily take the blame for playing a part in the crisis, he wondered if Labour would take their share of the blame for withdrawing the South Atlantic squadron in the 1960s.Is this a rhetorical question? If asked directly probably none would dare argue that Britain should hand over one thousand eight hundred Britains to, as Callaghan put it, "a gang of fucking Fascists" but I'm sure many would have considered it a price worth paying to get rid of that wicked witch Thatcher. Has anyone analyised how much a 'new' invincible class carrier would cost the days? Could we still get 3 for the price of 2? I don't think you'd get much of a saving to be honest, much of the cost these days seems to be in the design work with the actual construction of the ship being relatively cheap. For example, BAe has promised that any addition Astutes ordered could be done for 5-10% of the cost for the lead ship of the class. HMS Ocean- based heavily on the Invincible class and built to commercial standards - had an impressive construction spend of only £154 million, about the same as a Type 23 Frigate. However, I think that getting smaller 20,000 ton carriers would be a false economy because even say three of them are at best a defensive platform. You aren’t going to go on the offensive with a 20,000 ton carriers and as a power projecting tool it is rather laughable. A lack of a significant air wing is what lead to the British being unable to establish air superiority over the Falklands and instead having to adopt a strategy of attrition in which Argetine jets were traded for multi million pound warships. I think that if we're actually going to build carriers we should spend the money required to get capable hulls. Otherwise we shouldn't do it at all. Edited October 4, 2007 by Anthony EJW
Anthony EJW Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 (edited) I think this is what you really mean - http://www.armada.mde.es/ArmadaPortal/ Official site. Speaking of which, we'll need our navy to protect the new British South Atlantic Empire http://www.guardian.co.uk/argentina/story/0,,2174616,00.html Edited October 4, 2007 by Anthony EJW
Anthony EJW Posted October 5, 2007 Posted October 5, 2007 (edited) Yes, the muckraking that went on during (and long after) the sinking of the Belgrano is another good example of the HOCs ability to use the armed forces to score minor political points at the expense of focusing on real operational problems (such as the relative lack of ammunition for what was a relatively minor conflict, or the vulnerablity of the Type42). I often wondered what the response would have been if Belgrano hadnt been sunk, and had got close enough to use her guns. Doubtless Mrs T would have been criticised for not acting. One thing I recently learned was that HMS Spartan had been in a position to attack 25 de Mayo a week earlier but permission had been denied for diplomatic reasons and contact was lost, leaving her free to attack to Task Force. (I believe Nott claims credit for this in his memoirs). The potentially appaling consequences of that decision probably gave some added force to the demand by Woodward that Belgrano be sunk. As for ship design, Im sure you and many others on this thread are far better qualified to comment on it, and I suspect as far as costings you are very likely right. I do however think that before we embark on such projects we really ought to have a national debate on what we want the RN to do in the 21st Century. if we really want to project power (and reverse the decison of the 1970s and go east of Suez and South of Gibraltar) then evidently this is the correct way to do it. However in doing so, it strikes me as spurious to continue to cut back the rest of the fleet to do it. If we want to do it, then lets do it properly. If we dont ,and continue to run it which to my eye looks like on the cheap, then the point of 2 such vessels actually is nothing more than a 21st Century version of HMS Vanguard, which in its time was little more than a belated statement of national virility. Hah, I'm hardly an expect on warship design. I think we need a national debate on the whole future direction on the armed forces and in particular whether we want to remain focused on the NATO mission or to intergrate further with the EU- I don't think the government's current decision to do both is a particuarly cost effective strategy. To be honest if we are to continue with Blair's interventionist foreign policy then I would like to see an increase in defence spending as a proportion of the national budget to around US levels. Last time I checked we actually spent less on defence as %GDP as the French did- and they haven't been involved in two significant army deployments for the last 4 years. But that would require a government actually having the moral courage to do the right thing and take the political hit for increased spending. Don't worry about sounding cynical- you're not the only one. I think they actually revoke your passport if you're not... Edited October 5, 2007 by Anthony EJW
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