or is it a sign of chronic under resource, which only gets exposed when the chips are down? For example what should the RN have had ready in 1982, compared to what they did?
Good question and I guess it is why we saw the Minister of Defence resign.
The Royal Navy had to drag ships out of mothball, get instructors away from their training squadrons plus request the RAF to supply a number of pilots to fly alongside the boys in dark blue. We were using ships that were in mothball, ships that should have been sold, plus ships that were due to decommission. We were not scrapping the bottom of the barrel, we were using the barrel to ferry equipment.