Originally Posted by andrewn
The carriers strike me as the Defence equvalent to HS2.
<snip>
You literally couldnt think of a worse, more catastrophic state of affairs, for what once was a Navy that ruled the waves.
Originally Posted by
SamYeager
The word "cobblers" springs to mind but it's clear that you have already made up your mind.
I've got bad news for you, Sam. The PM's senior adviser is exercising firm control of the agenda across Whitehall and
has the same view of the carriers as andrewn:
Originally Posted by Dominic Cummings
...aircraft carriers are no longer safe from cheap missiles. I started making these arguments in 2004 when it was already clear that the UK Ministry of Defence carrier project was a disaster. Since then it has been a multi-billion pound case study in Whitehall incompetence, the MoD’s appalling ‘planning’ system and corrupt procurement, and Westminster’s systemic inability to think about complex long-term issues. Talking to someone at the MoD last year they said that in NATO wargames the UK carriers immediately bug out for the edge of the game to avoid being sunk. Of course they do. Carriers cannot be deployed against top tier forces because of the vast and increasing asymmetry between their cost and vulnerability to cheap sinking.
If he's wrong, someone needs to get him briefed PDQ before the next spending round. He's a disciple of Boyd so is probably clued-up enough about combat aircraft to ask awkward questions about F35 combat radius versus safe stand-off, tanker requirements, tanker basing and vulnerability, etc. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in No10 when the cost of protecting the boat against DF-21 type threats is added to the through-life bill for a capability that was considered only marginally cheaper to keep than to cancel just a few years ago. The problem the carriers now pose for Defence is that they're too prominent not to be used, and too valuable and symbolic to put in danger (imagine one being lost with 30+ aircraft and thousands of souls aboard). This creates an imperative to invest more and more in protecting something that is nowhere near central to our strategic requirement. That's politics...