Originally Posted by
Sunk at Narvik
Widge
I read an opinion piece in WarshipsIFR the other day complaining about how the RN has declined, was No 1, now smaller than the French etc etc but basicly it was a load of puffed up bluster and tosh
Any navy has got to reflect the defence priorities of its country and the facts are that presently we have no obvious threat to the UK, but rather than celebrate our good fortune, we complain about the decline in the size of the forces! You can't have peace AND Cold War defence spending (a fact that'll dawn on America when the baby boomers reach retirement age) so something has to give. In the RN's case it was the large escort fleet- SNLR?
What the RN is rightly focussing upon is a balanced force across all capabilities from MCMV to SSN's and retaining a core of expertese in each area should we need to expand again in the future. Its also built up its amphib shipping- now far better equiped than ever before. They may not be "fighting ships" in the Nelson/Cunningham tradition, but thats the price of victory at sea.. its a nice "problem" to have.
US defense spending as a % of GDP is well, well below Cold War levels. Apart from that I agree about the RN retaining core capabilities but it's looking unlikely that the supporting UK industry will be able to in the long term.