I agree with most if not all of the sentiments above, but I sadly doubt the Civil Serpents ( and defence kit salesmen ) will be cutting their budgets; the days when real pro's mentioned ' UK Ltd ' are long gone, now it's everyone scramble to secure their mega-pension !
I would however point out that much as the current lot are an easy target, it was the terminator Thatchers' mob who ordered ruthless cuts, and wanted to sell HMS Invincible until the Falklands saved their political arses - then Thatcher herself didn't even look at the advanced STOVL P-1216 for more than 5 seconds, as her personal political safety had been somewhat inadverntedly secured by Harrier FRS 1 & GR3, and great UK forces making do with crap equipment - in this occasion more land than air kit but the aircraft were also sparsely equipped, lucky not to be facing a more sophisticated foe.
I'm not a fan of politicians of any flavour.
The Navy have left themselves wide open for this by the relatively recent habit of positioning warships off the Port of London which do indeed seem a junket for senior officers, and the suggestion of a Type 45 to be ' guardship ' off the Thames for the upcoming Olympics ( even if the kit is working by then, what's it supposed to do, shoot down rogue airliners over London ) ?!
I know someone who's a serving Petty Officer who has had a sense of humour failure over warship fuel thus speed / range and even crew quarters heating reductions, while the sub' force is suffering a huge loss of experienced people, as manning rotas have become quite amazingly demanding for peace time.
This begs the question as to how are we going to man the CVF's, more likely sell at least one pronto virtually straight off the stocks ?
While bankers and Chiefs of Staff concentrate on their pay & pensions, hospitals & schools are closing down right & left, unless we get a war on our hands ( when I realise it's way too late to build or train for anything ) it's hard to see, even for a keen pro-defence type with experience in defence projects like me, why we're trying to punch above our weight with CVF, JSF & Trident, while Typhoon Tranche 1 looks well worth passing on, if only we could be sure of getting Tranche 2-3...
I happened to see a mention of the modified Abrams tank the U.S. use for mine & IED clearance the other day, so why with similar kit available are we sending poor sods out on foot to do the same job; this sort of comparison is why cocktail parties eventually get stomped on !
Incidentally, my ex-wife was a P.A. for an NHS Accounting dept; her whole job for her first day was to study an office furniture catalogue provided, ending up with her choice of a nice design of chair at £400 + in 1993 - sound familiar ?!
Last edited by Double Zero; 14th Mar 2010 at 17:55.