Saw this post on another Thread, and as it is likely to get merged anyway, thought I would drag this back to the front page (WEBF - you must be getting slow in your old age not to have this linked already!
).
Prolonged Libya effort unsustainable, warns Navy chief | UK news | guardian.co.uk
There are some very revealing soundbites from the 1SL - and a few home truths (or STFU's). Following much discussion about the Harrier/Carrier AD capability I thought this was quite interesting (my
bold):
"If we had Ark Royal and Harriers in February, I feel relatively assured that we would have deployed that capability off Libya to conduct the ground (operations), not the air defence piece which the Harrier was not capable of achieving.
Best 1SL have a word with MM as he has clearly been mis-briefed by his staff!
Banter aside, the quote below is, IMHO, quite worrying and reveals how much of the family silver has been sold off to pay for the QE class
But Stanhope made it clear that he did not have enough ships to continue what is a relatively small operation in Libya without something else having to give.
"If we do it longer than six months we will have to reprioritise forces. That is being addressed now. It could be from around home waters. I will not prejudge what that decision will be."
Ouch
