These ships are radical designs and of their time. I spent a short period of service onboard T45 at the scrag end of my career and they seemed to my non technical eye, in a word -fantastic. But I can know they require a lot of good technicians, skilled engineers and competent operators, at many levels.
Are they (T45) not alongside because the RN has simply not enough of these people? and doesn't pay them enough to hold onto them anyway? The situation will only deteriorate further when the carrier (s) arrive with their aircraft (whatever they are). I've been slated on here in the past for saying this but to man our ships we have to make it (1) Easier for the ratings in that the deployments are managed with sensible rotations. (2) massively increase the pay to match civilian offshore oil and gas level standard (3) cut the utter traditional bull**** and make it a happier environment in which to actually serve or take part in. Otherwise we will remain to have a small selection of challenging ships with no one to man them. HS2 rail link thing, Hinkley power station build, the new offshore wind farm build of the Humber, to name but three are going to suck in a large proportion of good technically qualified or trainable for such people. What is the RN offering in a way of a career against those?
Need radical ideas here.
I suggest looser RN contracts. Do they call this the gig economy now? Paid for a period of work, then you move on perhaps outside the RN to a civilian build project, and so on. The days the RN would grab people in its claws... - they are over. Bright people wont do it, or put up with it. even not so bright people wont....Need some radical new ideas. The Navy has got to loosen up a bit... Other countries military drift in and out of service (Israel for example) Could we?
Last edited by Hangarshuffle; 19th Sep 2016 at 20:33.