Illustrious heads to sea - with an airgroup
 

Posted by the RN yesterday. Illustrious departs Monday.

full article

Interesting that DILIGENCE is in the Group. The modern solution to lack of overseas Bases? Also interesting that 75% of the air defence screen is not RN.

With an F100 and an Arleigh Burke, who needs a T42? The French may as well go home as well.

DILIGENCE will be supporting HMS Trafalgar.

See the earlier threads:

Orion 08

RN aircraft carrier to head for the Gulf

With an F100 and an Arleigh Burke, who needs a T42? The French may as well go home as well.

Would our allies be so helpful in a real crisis? Or would we sorely feel not having the Sea Harrier any more?

The Sea Harrier in this country is long gone and is not coming back WEBF. They have even dismantled (or were suppose to have done) the Ski-Ramp at Yeovilton last week. Think it's best to forget about the SHar now and look ahead.

We regularly escort US ships in theatre and they will do the same for our Navy in crisis... if you are working in a combined patrol then yes, you could rely on them otherwise there won't be any point of them being there.

Like that already said, with the F100 and Arleigh in the group, the T42 chaps must feel a little out dated.

You might as well say:

With the USN who needs the RN............

Share around
 

I think a Type 42 is currently working with a US CVBG, so it is just the usual allies working together line.

My my the xenophobia in this thread is just a tad overwhelming.

After the Missouri Silkworm incident, The USN would not trust the RN to wave a hanky around. Command was told in no uncertain terms that to allow a Bruiser inside the group was inexcusable. Much spin was put on this, but in truth it was a buggers muddle.

Silkworm Incident 1991
 

I never heard that before Navaleye. Care to elaborate.

I did here that the USN CG47 that was supposed to be on duty had been deliberately misreporting its position following the Princeton hitting a mine, not sure how true that is. Supposedly it was proceeding more slowly up the Gulf than it was supposed to be to avoid the mine threat.

What an absolutely amazing statement. Mispellings aside, how exactly did the Ticonderoga, CG47 to those who don't bother to think before they post bull****, manage to deliberately misreport her position in this age of electronic C2?

Wasn't the Ticonderoga herself, but another CG47. Priceton was supposed to be on station but hit a mine, the replacement proceeded more slowly than ordered up the Gulf to avoid further mines and hence wasn't in the position it was supposed to be when the Silkworm incident occurred. Just a story I heard.

At last!
Got the awning for the quarterdeck finished in time for the cocktails tour!
"Number One - cast off - set course for sunnier climes on max rates of allowances and make sure nobody shoots at us"
"Roger Sir, setting course for Westminister, Brussels, and Saudi Arabia"

What a f*cking joke!:O

NAVAL EYE Just googled that, can you enlighten us as to how the RN messed up? All I can find is how HMS Gloucester saved the Missouri after the US Escort fired on the Missouri's chaff and even managed to strafe the battleship that it was escorting. Did the RN allow the silkworm to get to close in the first place?

Why is it that any thread discussing the RN attracts posters desperate to write off the navy as irrelevent?

These "Group deployments" are an interesting exercise in naval diplomacy that have been running every two or three years since the withdrawal EoS in the early 70's.

They have a number of functions (in no particular order)

• Exercising independent command of a TF away from home waters
• Exercising the ships and men in scenarios away from the NATO area (quanitly called "out of area" in the old days) and away from the RN's big brother the USN.
• Exercising with friendly foriegn navies in the FPDA and elsewhere
• A visible display of the UK's continuing interest and commitment outside the NATO area.. esp now in Asia- the planets fastest growing economies.
• Opportunities for diplomacy and port visits (yes, even a few cocktail parties) gaining (hopefully) favourable publicity for the RN and by extension, the UK. Navies are afterall one of the most visible and enduring ways of impressing friends, allies and potential enemies.
• Opportunities for trade fairs (like it or not arms exports are a major factor)

The army tends to be rather more permenent in its presence, not always welcome and air forces by their nature, rather more transient. Its a task any navy is well suited to- just look at the coverage generated by the Kuznetsovs current trip.

"Group deployments" are the RN's response to the need to be seen by the UK as a global power. They are an interesting contrast to the French approach which is to maintain small squadrons of ships permenently on station. The RN decided thirty years ago that periodic deployments at TF strength offered far greater opportunities for training and command experience.

Seen it its historical context "Orion 08" is well overdue. Yes, there have been various shorter deployments into the Indian Ocean in recent years, but this one will be the first to goto the Far East in a decade- the last being Lusty's last trip out east for the handover of HK in 97.

The RAF conduct similar exercises with foriegn air forces- Red Flag and Magic Carpet, which don't attract the same (if any) comment. The RAF also often participate in the annual FPDA exercise "Bersama Lima". I presume all involved both work hard and play hard as appropriate?

Gosh, the RN have a Strike Wing, whilst all the RAF have is squadron... :ooh:

Steady on!
 

Guided Weapons: "Do we really need these expensive, overated, unemployable white elephants to track the blade and shaft fit of Iranian outboard engines!!!
"

The Merlin is actually a very capable ASuW and ASW platform, and the Iranians in particular have a better submarine capability than you would think. Besides, you can fit a lot of mail bags in the back of one of those beasts!!

Wish I had your crystal ball Guided- would save the country a fortune on buying weapons that are not going to be needed in the next crisis or war.

Naval Eye

"After the Missouri Silkworm incident, The USN would not trust the RN to wave a hanky around. Command was told in no uncertain terms that to allow a Bruiser inside the group was inexcusable. Much spin was put on this, but in truth it was a buggers muddle."


Well at least the RN managed to shoot down the Silkworn
and not shoot the Missouri like the USS Ship did !

Maybe the RN should leave the defence to the US Navy to
ensure the enemy gets a hit next time !

Lusty returning to Portsmouth because of 'broken fridge' allegedly...

tonyosborne - Cheers!
Gave me a bit of a fright there - thought you were going to say the cocktail awning on the Qtr-deck had collapsed - Phew!:hmm:

It seems a refrigeration problem has caused Illustrious to head back to Pompey

http://http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/...6908-20295569/

How cool is that?......

What, you mean its not like in the RN recruiting ad where "Ginge" nips downstairs and twists a couple of wires together to fix it? Have they run out of Bodge Tape then?

The horror, G&Ts with no ice.:uhoh:

Surely the first thing you do when the ships freezer goes tits up is to

Brown your meat!!!

# 14 "Got the awning for the quarterdeck finished in time for the cocktails tour!"

#26 "Gave me a bit of a fright there - thought you were going to say the cocktail awning on the Qtr-deck had collapsed"

plus "I doubt if the RN were deployed in the desert they could hit a camels arse with a shovel" (#30 in the associated thread on the
need for a Navy)

Oh dear! Perhaps these posts should be transferred to the Medical & Health forum - Buoy15 has obviously got serious issues regarding our dark blue colleagues in general and quarterdeck awnings in particular!

Jack

PS The more socially aware will know, but I suspect that ILLUSTRIOUS doesn't actually have a proper quarterdeck awning!

Sorry Jack
Have touched either a soft or sore spot
Must have been that "hot bunking" or perhaps "double bunking" over the years
No wonder you feel sore, or are you getting soft dear?:ouch:

No wonder you feel sore, or are you getting soft?

None of the above Bigbuoy - just perceptive and observant, like Guidedweapons.:rolleyes:

Jack

GPMG wrote
Well, it is a little exaggeration to say that intercepting the silkworm after it had already passed by Missouri [having missed] is "saving them".

More like "closing the barn door after the cow is gone".

Greenknight,

You have your facts wrong. All I will say is, the boys on Gloucester did good. :ok:

One wished one was not bound by the Official Secrets Act. HMS Gloucester is the only warship ever to have shot down a missile with a missile in anger.

It would appear that the so called broken fridge is the ship's main refrigerated storage, fully stocked for a lengthy deployment. Had they carried on regardless there would be headlines about food getting thrown away, or contractors being flown out to fix it? Don't you just love the media?

Would you rather she deployed with a known fault that would need fixing later, or deal with it before getting to far from the UK, and deploy fully operational?

Widger/timzsta

According to a book published in 1992, the Silkworm was heading for the survey vessel come MCM command platform HMS Herald. I believe the book was written by Ben Brown and Jeremy Bowen, and called All Necessary Means. They also speculated that the launch may have been detected by the two O Class SSKs acting in and intelligence gathering role.

Just how much damage would a Silkworm do to a WW2 Battleship anyway?

That might hurt!
 

WEBF OS details for Silkworm:

Length: 6.60 metre
Diameter: 0.76 metre
Wingspan: 2.4 metre
Weight: 2,300 kg
Warhead: 513 kg shape charged high-explosive
Propulsion: One liquid rocket engine and one solid rocket booster
Speed: Mach 0.8
Range: 70 km
Cruising altitude: 100~300m (early models); <20m (later models)
Guidance: Inertial + active conical scanning terminal guidance radar (early models); or inertial + monopulse active radar (later models)
Single-shot kill probability: 70%


Even if it failed to go off, a 2.3 tonne mass arriving at M .8 would seriously spoil your day! However, with a PK of .7 you've actually got a reasonable chance of a miss with a relative minor level of countermeasures.

Like a fridge over troubled water then?

A "fridge too far?"
 

Doesn't the Navy carry Engineers then?

The world is full of cruise ships, most of them a lot bigger and with far bigger fridge plants that don't have to leg it to the nearest port because something so trivial as the fridge plant is rooted.

All this talk of fridges the size of bungalows is disingenious, regardless of how big the cold room is the actual fridge plant consists of relatively small components. Even if the complete compressor needed replacing, so what? In the real world the faulty component would be sent to next port of call, easier in this case though, must be terribly convenient having a big flat bit to land helicoptors on.

Personally reckon the Chief Thief's department dropped a major b*****k and simply didn't load the stuff in the first place....

You haven't seen the new engineering syllabuses (syllabi?) or been exposed to CLS guarantee clauses then....

Glad about the fridge
Is the cocktail awning ok? With the recent winds we are getting a bit worried!:p