Originally Posted by
buoy15
we have longer legs and the element of surprise!!
The biggest pain in the arse in tracking (and losing) Sov Nucs in the 70's & 80's were the RN
<<HMS WASNAEME denied at de-brief - remember?>>
What you say here was very true. Can't anwser for HMS ... as I was long gone by then, but it fits, and we saw the results of a P3C - the same except the grams were black in those days.
I would agree the element of surprise and the potential for longer
reach but for longer
legs you need sufficient assets to maintain a patrol cycle which is essential to catch a DE boat.
Minigun also raises an interesting point
why would we need ASW and convoy protection. Surely, with 500,00 members, the Civvies could get the USN to do that. I don't think our tinpot fleet
The Noggies manager to protect their oil tankers quite well. They use someone else to do convoy escort. Apart from it being in
our strategic interest for
their oil to get through they would seem to get a double economic benefit as they don't lose their tanker and they don't pay for its protection.
Is that last point about payment true? With our bean counters I could just imagine the accountant on HMS Wasname calling up the Global Whatever, "There may be mines and submarined around here. Do you want me to confirm or deny their presence? It will be $1Bn per sitrep."
