Originally Posted by
Asturias56
I've always thought that we should have bought more Astutes (and less aircraft carriers)
There's also a clear need for more small patrol vessels to do the nitty gritty jobs that seem to fall to the Navy - and maybe stop having to use tankers & Argos as a fill-in
I can't see how you can protect pipelines tho' - the anwer is several methods of importing gas & oil - which we have to some extent.
Former firebrand Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating (who is now largely regarded here as an irrelevant, angry old man shouting at clouds) did have a rather amusing take on large surface vessels.
“I always say to the American admirals, you know every great battleship went down in the first week at sea in the Second World War, the Bismark, the Tirpitz, the Yamato. I mean Churchill sent the Repulse to Malaysia and it wasn’t their first week at sea but their first conflict and they went down too,” Mr Keating said. “Just like these American carriers are going to go down when a nasty fight starts and I said to this admiral they all sound the same in the end. And he said what do you mean? “Glug, glug, glug, glug!”