"Sort out the Navy!" - Lord West
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Westerham, Kent
Posts: 97
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: 59°09N 002°38W (IATA: SOY, ICAO: EGER)
Age: 80
Posts: 812
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
A Pathe film clip from the time when Britain had a Navy
Yawn - off we go again...
When will retired senior officers stop spouting off? It's no different to retired airships bemoaning a lack of FJ Sqns or Generals getting dewy-eyed at scrapped regiments and the number of tubes and tanks...let alone parachuting.
These "experts" were at the vanguard of a generation that always wanted the next bigger, better, faster, shinier toy but didn't (ever) have the money to pay for them and now seem astounded that they can't have the high-tech toys in the same number as the old toys they replace. If a Typhoon is 10 times better than an F3 then you need substantially less, the same with T45 v T42. You can't have it both ways. If these officers had decided on a proportion of the forces being "low tech, low cost, high numbers" for peacetime Ops and a bit of concurrency, then we'd still have flotillas of ships, stations full of aircraft and parade grounds full of tanks. They didn't. They acquiesced to a defence policy built around maintaining BAES and buying their products to protect Britain PLC. If they didn't like it they should have had the guts to resign whilst serving rather than carp at their successors from the £300 a day pension-boosting House of Lords.
Oh, that's become a rant....sorry...
When will retired senior officers stop spouting off? It's no different to retired airships bemoaning a lack of FJ Sqns or Generals getting dewy-eyed at scrapped regiments and the number of tubes and tanks...let alone parachuting.
These "experts" were at the vanguard of a generation that always wanted the next bigger, better, faster, shinier toy but didn't (ever) have the money to pay for them and now seem astounded that they can't have the high-tech toys in the same number as the old toys they replace. If a Typhoon is 10 times better than an F3 then you need substantially less, the same with T45 v T42. You can't have it both ways. If these officers had decided on a proportion of the forces being "low tech, low cost, high numbers" for peacetime Ops and a bit of concurrency, then we'd still have flotillas of ships, stations full of aircraft and parade grounds full of tanks. They didn't. They acquiesced to a defence policy built around maintaining BAES and buying their products to protect Britain PLC. If they didn't like it they should have had the guts to resign whilst serving rather than carp at their successors from the £300 a day pension-boosting House of Lords.
Oh, that's become a rant....sorry...
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Temporarily missing from the Joe Louis Arena
Posts: 2,131
Received 27 Likes
on
16 Posts
I spy a Daily Mail reader.
Sick, lame and lazy have little to do with the fact that successive governments and their senior officer lackies have repeatedly thrown one of the largest defence budgets in the world up the wall or into the pockets of BAe for this season's must have untried and untested must have toys.
Sick, lame and lazy have little to do with the fact that successive governments and their senior officer lackies have repeatedly thrown one of the largest defence budgets in the world up the wall or into the pockets of BAe for this season's must have untried and untested must have toys.
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: The Green
Posts: 56
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
@Evalu8ter : I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head...And as some guy said : At this pace, in 50 years' time, we will have a one aircraft Air Force and a one ship Navy, but it's going to be a f***ing aircraft and f****ing ship!!!
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Detroit MI
Age: 66
Posts: 1,460
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Helpful:
Go take a look at what is spent on benefits, pensions, health etc.
Then take a look at the pitiful amount spent on protecting those entitlements.
Nothing to do with the Daily Mail. I'll agree that the budgets have been utterly misspent but when you spend almost three times as much on welfare than you do on defending the country there isn't much in the budgets in the first place.
Linky
Go take a look at what is spent on benefits, pensions, health etc.
Then take a look at the pitiful amount spent on protecting those entitlements.
Nothing to do with the Daily Mail. I'll agree that the budgets have been utterly misspent but when you spend almost three times as much on welfare than you do on defending the country there isn't much in the budgets in the first place.
Linky
Sick, lame and lazy have little to do with the fact that successive governments and their senior officer lackies have repeatedly thrown one of the largest defence budgets in the world up the wall or into the pockets of BAe for this season's must have untried and untested must have toys.
The real problem is that MOD as an entity no longer has even a rudimentary ability to understand what things "should" cost and therefore no ability to argue the toss on a credible basis with the contractors (and it ain't just BAES, although they are the most direct manifestation).
Instead, MoD employ a whole host of consultancy companies to "help" them with understanding cost. Trouble is that many of these consultancies are no more informed than MoD about the technical and engineering elements of these projects and end up falling back on ill-defined "risk" fudge factors and complicated "models" that end up obscuring the real elements of interest, bloating the budget and because the budget is rarely kept under discretion, usually end up as the "price" - a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's not in any way to suggest that all contractors are sharks - far from it. The process needs to work both ways, but I'm afraid that ignorance and a bloated approvals system militate against common sense ever breaking out.
The real problem is that MOD as an entity no longer has even a rudimentary ability to understand what things "should" cost and therefore no ability to argue the toss on a credible basis with the contractors (and it ain't just BAES, although they are the most direct manifestation).
Instead, MoD employ a whole host of consultancy companies to "help" them with understanding cost. Trouble is that many of these consultancies are no more informed than MoD about the technical and engineering elements of these projects and end up falling back on ill-defined "risk" fudge factors and complicated "models" that end up obscuring the real elements of interest, bloating the budget and because the budget is rarely kept under discretion, usually end up as the "price" - a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's not in any way to suggest that all contractors are sharks - far from it. The process needs to work both ways, but I'm afraid that ignorance and a bloated approvals system militate against common sense ever breaking out.
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Temporarily missing from the Joe Louis Arena
Posts: 2,131
Received 27 Likes
on
16 Posts
Go take a look at what is spent on benefits, pensions, health etc.
Whilst the benefit system is a concern what is the issue with money being spent
on pensions and health?
on pensions and health?
Seemples.
Evalu8tor,
Thirded!
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Temporarily missing from the Joe Louis Arena
Posts: 2,131
Received 27 Likes
on
16 Posts
It does not serve as a deterrent to would-be adversaries. Watch Argentina!
Of course speaking in the present rather than looking back with misty eyes at a world that was, just how much of an actual military threat is Argentina these days to an apparently improverished (no thanks to all them im-er-grants and dole scroungers eh?) UK military?
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Detroit MI
Age: 66
Posts: 1,460
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Whilst the benefit system is a concern what is the issue with money being spent on pensions and health?
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Temporarily missing from the Joe Louis Arena
Posts: 2,131
Received 27 Likes
on
16 Posts
Yeah, the NHS is a disaster. Universial, free at point of use healthcare for less than per person than the USA pays per person (though it doesn't mean those people get healthcare, just that they pay for it) to prop up a non-universal, not-free at point of use healthcare system.
Who have the 'unreasonable' pensions btw?
Who have the 'unreasonable' pensions btw?
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: 45 yards from a tropical beach
Posts: 1,103
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Whilst admiring the sheer size, firepower and presence of the Royal Navy in that Royal Review, does anyone else agree with me that the FAA was seen to be somewhat lacking in formation flying skills?
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Detroit MI
Age: 66
Posts: 1,460
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Really hope you never get sick or made redundant............
Because you'd expect me to pay for you.
I have no problem helping. But I resent institutionalized theft that only really benefits those seeking power.