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Irish trawler 'given order to move on' by Royal Navy frigate

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  • Financially, the best place to look for an historical parallel could be the early 1930’s - recession, and no threat of a major war for over 10 years.

    Does anybody remember how that worked out?
    'He died who loved to live,' they'll say,
    'Unselfishly so we might have today!'
    Like hell! He fought because he had to fight;
    He died that's all. It was his unlucky night.
    http://www.salamanderoasis.org/poems...nnis/luck.html

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Flamingo View Post
      Financially, the best place to look for an historical parallel could be the early 1930’s - recession, and no threat of a major war for over 10 years.

      Does anybody remember how that worked out?
      If I remember correctly it was a short skiing holiday in Norway followed by quick dash across the channel to pick-up some cheap booze in the Calais region. Then getting a tan in North Africa before returning to France for more wine and cheese, that was it or?

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      • Originally posted by EUFighter View Post
        If I remember correctly it was a short skiing holiday in Norway followed by quick dash across the channel to pick-up some cheap booze in the Calais region. Then getting a tan in North Africa before returning to France for more wine and cheese, that was it or?
        Don't forget that little holiday to Asia as well...

        Comment


        • Originally posted by EUFighter View Post
          If I remember correctly it was a short skiing holiday in Norway followed by quick dash across the channel to pick-up some cheap booze in the Calais region. Then getting a tan in North Africa before returning to France for more wine and cheese, that was it or?
          Originally posted by Sparky42 View Post
          Don't forget that little holiday to Asia as well...
          Or all those Mirgrants from the Colonies and Former Colonies who responded to the call for the extra man power that was required to cover those holidays.
          Last edited by CTU; 28 August 2020, 18:35.
          It was the year of fire...the year of destruction...the year we took back what was ours.
          It was the year of rebirth...the year of great sadness...the year of pain...and the year of joy.
          It was a new age...It was the end of history.
          It was the year everything changed.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by CTU View Post
            Or all those Mirgrants from the Colonies and Former Colonies who responded to the call for the extra man power that was required to cover those holidays.
            And even those Eastern Europeans who turned up to do some of the work as well.

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            • Originally posted by CTU View Post
              So much for their Post Brexit-Rule Britannia plans (East of Aden and the other things they prommised to the RN)
              The decline has been over the past 60 years as the glow of Empire has declined. This has been matched bythe ever decreasing % of GDP committed to the UK Armed Forces and its impact is easily seen not just on the RN but also the RAF. The link with defence spending and the size of the RN is easily correlated:

              % GDP Aircraft Carriers Cruisers Destroyers Frigates Submarines
              1960 6.7 8 14 156 54
              1980 5.8 2 0 64 44
              2000 3.0 3 0 32 13
              2020 1.7 0 0 19 11
              Also the growth or the lack of it in relation to GDP has had a knock-on effect such that per person the UK spends $717 per person on defence while Australia is able to spend $1105. This enables the RAN to buy 9 Type 26 frigates while the RN can barely manage 8 despite Australia having less than half the population of the UK. It take a lot to have a navy with world wide reach and the amount the UK spends on defence is just not enough. The country is the size of France and they found it impossible to fund a second carrier so it should be no surprise that the RN will struggle to maintain 2 carriers as well as an independent sea based nuclear force.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by EUFighter View Post
                The decline has been over the past 60 years as the glow of Empire has declined. This has been matched bythe ever decreasing % of GDP committed to the UK Armed Forces and its impact is easily seen not just on the RN but also the RAF. The link with defence spending and the size of the RN is easily correlated:

                % GDP Aircraft Carriers Cruisers Destroyers Frigates Submarines
                1960 6.7 8 14 156 54
                1980 5.8 2 0 64 44
                2000 3.0 3 0 32 13
                2020 1.7 0 0 19 11
                Also the growth or the lack of it in relation to GDP has had a knock-on effect such that per person the UK spends $717 per person on defence while Australia is able to spend $1105. This enables the RAN to buy 9 Type 26 frigates while the RN can barely manage 8 despite Australia having less than half the population of the UK. It take a lot to have a navy with world wide reach and the amount the UK spends on defence is just not enough. The country is the size of France and they found it impossible to fund a second carrier so it should be no surprise that the RN will struggle to maintain 2 carriers as well as an independent sea based nuclear force.
                Even before Falklands, and certainly post-Falklands Defence spending in the UK has been erratic with occasional big ticket items coming on stream, depending on political views of the time. There may be need to tidy up the overall estate with the return of European elements in Germany. Then on the other hand there are still many overseas commitments and a dozen or more overseas territories. Coupled with physical commitments there is the maintenance of the deterrent and renewal of delivery elements on an ongoing time scale.
                Sometimes ship numbers decrease because of the scale of the response capability in newer vessels with modern weapons and munitions. However the numbers game can be improved by using less costly vessels , with moderate crewing, and automatic FCS and weapons , in places where frigates and bigger have been used.
                The Antipodes have to step up to increased Naval activity given their vast territories from Indonesia to the North, to Solomon Islands to the East, and the Antartic to the South. That coupled to the expansion of China's interests is a cause for vigilance. I'd imagine the RNZN and RAN should co-ord and operate as a single Naval Force.
                The £55bn spent on UK Defence is a lot of money and compares generously to the Euro 1bn we spend on the whole DOD.

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                • Also, the UK's armed forces train relentlessly and always have done and the global mentality of UK PLC means that they train everywhere, fire off a crazy amount of expensive ammunition and move lots of people and kit continuously. Their training budget alone is bigger than our entire budget so it's not really fair to make a direct comparison. Our Defence budget is also hamstrung by being mostly pay and pensions, a clever move by the DoF,that kicks a chunk of the national budget into one small department. So we end up with a shrinking military with huge tasks on hand and a Govt that doesnt really give a shit about Defence,until the EU has a word in it's ear about EEZs and so on.

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                  • The RAN T26 buy of nine ships will be their entire frigate force, the RN are hopefully still on course to receive eight T26 but also five T31. Yes there's lots of speculation in the press about defence cuts but until anything is formally announced that's all it is.

                    Someone mentioned RAAF maritime patrol / AWACS Vs RAF; Australia has the third largest EEZ in the world, extending from its own coastline, so they absolutely have to invest in that capability especially given the Chinese activity in that region. They also have a land mass 32 times the size of the UK.

                    So in my opinion its not really that straightforward comparing the RAAF to the RAF; different organisations facing different priorities and threats, and conversely Australia seems to me anyway to invest less in their land and overall naval forces.

                    Good point made above ref. the training budget; another factor is ongoing operations in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali etc. I believe the RAF have dropped about £100 million pounds worth of ordnance on Op Shader alone.
                    'History is a vast early warning system'. Norman Cousins

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                    • Originally posted by ancientmariner View Post
                      The £55bn spent on UK Defence is a lot of money and compares generously to the Euro 1bn we spend on the whole DOD.
                      What's the point of this? Yes a G7/UNSC member/nuclear power spends a sh!t ton more than us, so does every other member of such clubs, surely we should be scoping our spend or lack there of against peer nations?

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                      • At least, in the Df as a whole, the amount of ammunition scales allowed for training went up to realistic levels. In fact, the whole mentality of training changed for the better. Id say the average soldier is not knowingly undertrained,by anyone's standard.

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                        • Originally posted by Sparky42 View Post
                          What's the point of this? Yes a G7/UNSC member/nuclear power spends a sh!t ton more than us, so does every other member of such clubs, surely we should be scoping our spend or lack there of against peer nations?
                          It is simple, you spend on Defence, to meet international obligations , if any, and thereafter to safeguard your nation and it's supply chains and assets. The comparative exercise with our neighbours was to show that if a country 12 times your size in population, spends 55m then we should be considering sums up to 4.6b. Comparatively ,we spend 0.3% of GDP, 1bn euro. If we spent 1.5% of GDP then we would be spending 5bn Euro---so the comparison is reasonable.Finland, Norway,Sweden, and Denmark spend 3 or 4 times our budget and have the benefit of an indigenous defence industry. It is hard to find any countries that spend less than us but Maritius, and Papua New Guinea are among them and Haiti spends zero as its all free. Our guns and bullets plus hardware bit, after stripping out pay and pensions is more like 0.06 % of Gdp or closest to Haiti.

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                          • Originally posted by Sparky42 View Post
                            And just as I thought, today's "leak" regarding the review
                            ‘You might as well start claiming that you're going to defend Great Britain with a bunch of dugout canoes,’ said a defence industry source

                            The 26's cut to 3 and the 31's and that's it in this version, with those numbers the Carriers couldn't even have a battlegroup let alone anything else.
                            Number games with warships are interesting depending on what set of values are compared. Just for fun I had a look at the tonnage of warships in the RN, major surface vessels and submarines excl. RFA. Interestingly although the numbers of vessels has dramatically fallen over the years the total tonnage has not. Today the RN has slightly more tonnage as back in 1980 and the value for 2000 was similar. With only 3x Type-26 and 5x Type-31 frigates this value will remain very similar, if the full project numbers of Type-26 frigates were ordered then the tonnage would exceed that of 1980 by more than 12%.

                            Here lies the dilemma of modern navies, larger more capable ships leads to fewer hulls in the water. Even if the Type-31 frigates are a good move they are larger than the Type-23 frigates they are intended to replace in the GP role. But they do have the big advantage that they require only about half of the crew at least during peacetime as I do have a doubt if that would be sufficient in wartime for damage control (reason for reserves?).

                            Compared with the RN the INS has actually increased significantly its fleet tonnage over the years. Compared with 1980 the fleet in 2000 had 50% more tonnage and even only counting the only 2x P50 and 4x P60 vessels the fleet would be double the tonnage. And if our fleet replacement plans do go ahead then our future tonnage could be 4 times what it was in 1980. So looking at fleet size in terms of tonnage gives a totally different picture than just looking at the numbers.

                            But number of hulls or fleet tonnage does not give a full picture and many will argue in the RN that each Type-45 is able to replace 2-3 Type-42's as it is much more capable. They are indeed more capable but so has the threat increased. For us we have seen the capability of our ship types decrease from a high with the introduction of the LE Eithne. Their we had a vessel with a air and sub-surface capability that the newest vessels do not have. We could do a major upgrade and add sensors to cover these additional fields but this alone would not be enough. If a vessel is tracking a submarine it cannot easily also track a potential smuggler, or be performing fishery inspections.

                            One way to cover this would be to have more vessels in the INS or alternatively to add "force multipliers" to the ship. So as a minimum this would be a UAV capable of ASW if ASW is to be added to the taskings. Better would be a helicopter as it too could perform boarding operations and adds the offshore SAR to the capabilities of the vessel. However the latter is only possible with a new build and not part of a upgrade/refit.

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                            • An interesting site with details of lots of interesting sub-sea vessels, maybe coming to a shore near u soon:
                              http://www.hisutton.com/

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by EUFighter View Post
                                An interesting site with details of lots of interesting sub-sea vessels, maybe coming to a shore near u soon:
                                http://www.hisutton.com/
                                Yes there are evolutionary things out there but we must re-focus and look to our needs as an Island Navy. Right now we are a one class patrol navy, with one Port/harbour. We are desperately short of training and auxiliary craft in that we go from zero to multi-million Euro ships. There is an exposure problem in that many of our smaller ports cannot receive a naval visit. Some of our peers have triple our manpower and scores of craft from training units to logistics/landing craft and none of them are islands. Norway and Denmark have an MN approaching 20million tons , we dumped around 300,000 in one night with the collapse of ISL. We close Drydocks while others can dock ships of any size up to 400m+. Singapore a near island has a major Navy equalling most mid-powers. There is a lot to be done and it lies in alliances among other things for training and ambition.

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