I couldn't find a pink pig smiley.

PN, allow me.

http://www.kitsandparts.com/flying_pig.gif

Some might be interested in an upcoming set of articles on the Think Defence blog - the first of which has recently been posted.

Future Maritime Patrol – Part 1 (Challenges and Missions)

Jayand

I think you best bound your definition of "never": Clearly the rest of your post makes you sound very knowledgeable on the subject...not.

Love to know your qualification and expertise? (Maritime, not MRA 4).

KISS
 

1.The Silver Fox's summary is brilliant and still relevant.

2.We need an MPA now for the basic defence / well-being of the UK which should be our main priority.

3.A stopgap is needed so just get on and beg ,steal or borrow the best value airframe before all the priceless maritime expertise is lost.

I don't think you need to be an expert on this subject to know the outcome.
There are a lot of sound arguments for getting back the capability, however since when has that made a blind bit of difference to the price of fish?

Mark my words, it won't be happening!

Only hope is that Wee Eck wins his referendum - the nats have said they'll have an MPA capability - but I suspect it will PATROL only.....

HH,

The nats have said they'll have a lot of things if they win......






Now then, what's a politicians "promise" worth again..? :=

And what would be the mission requirement for this MPA?

If it be basic defence of the UK, and assume there is a threat, then we are talking of a littoral role. To prosecute one SSK, off say the Firth of Forth or the outer Clyde, then you need 3 MPA plus a maintenance spare. To prosecute in the SWApps as well you now need 7. To deploy OOA you need another 2 or 3 depending on whether you want a daylight or 24 hr patrol cycle.

If you want to replicate the Nimrod LRMP role you need a similar number of larger airframes.

Even the MRA4 was never going to be in enough numbers to meet 3 simultaneous tasks.

Do you not think this is a little (or maybe very) naive? Is this not exactly the sort of attitude the CDS warned about, just before Christmas? You talk about the big wide world as if we have nothing to do with it old chap.

I'm presuming you have no interest in the price of your clothes, your fuel, your food, your electronics or your cheap chinese tat that all get shipped through the Gulf.

I'm also presuming you take delight in the prospect at the flood of class A drugs into your neighbourhood because we've given up the anti-drug trafficking mission. Or perhaps you prefer the thought of some terrorists holed up in some armpit of the world getting their hands on some rather destructive substances from a country that I won't name, but I'm sure would rhyme with shmorth Shmorea or Shmiran.

Obviously I've embellished some of the threats, but economic prosperity and world intervention, whether you like it or not, go hand in hand. We've moved far beyond the days of mercantalist economics and are now more dependent on the rest of the world than ever...do you not think its stability is necessary for our own prosperity? And do you not think, that as the 6th richest country in the world with resources that the vast majority of the world's countries could only dream of having, we should play our part in securing that stability? Even for our own selfish needs...

And UK MPA has done what to support this?

We have an African anti-drug mission? I thought it was the RN in the Caribbean that did this and was not aware of a prior UK MPA presence. I did see a US P3 down near the Venezuelan coast once but I wasn't quick enough to see the operator or indeed if it was US.

And UK MPA? As I said earlier, based where exactly.

You seem to have moved well away from Africa and while your concerns are real I do not see a UK MPA aspect, especially one in single figures.

PN, It was your point of "we don't have any other world interests other than the oil coming out of the ground in Libya and Nigeria" that I take issue with.

"generals always fight the last war" is what springs to mind when people say things like this, you have absolutely no evidence to substantiate your claim that a nation that has an extremely heavy reliance on shipping across the globe isn't going to need a MPA capability in the future. Just because it isn't immediately obvious now in some hypothetical African scenario doesn't mean the capability isn't going to be seen as in indispensable asset in many, many other future scenarios.

PN
"We have an African anti-drug mission? I thought it was the RN in the Caribbean that did this and was not aware of a prior UK MPA presence. I did see a US P3 down near the Venezuelan coast once but I wasn't quick enough to see the operator or indeed if it was US"



The MR2 was a highly successful counter narc platform operating in the Caribbean (and elsewhere), possibly the best (on performance – number of detections) of all the MPA involved. Searchwater being an excellent radar, the expertise of the crews and the superb backup of the Groundies. The main difference between the RN and the RAF was the RN had a positive PR campaign, where as the RAF didn’t.

Quite a few of the MR2 detections were handed off to the RN for the “end game” – they then claimed the credit.

As always, many negative assumptions are made about Nimrod/MPA – only those who were there really know!!!

Oh dear!

Oh dear, oh dear!!

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

This is exactly what is wrong with people who have little or no knowledge pontificating on a subject that they really do not understand. If I may just point you in the direction of post number 6 on this thread:

[QUOTE]Here we go again - another MPA thread which will, no doubt , expose the lack of maritime awareness of the majority of the RAF.[/QUOTE]

Spot on RP

and if I could direct you all to post 32

Two points to start with:

1) Over 85% of drugs intercepted in the Caribbean, by whatever method (Nimrod, RN, psychics, satellites, UFOs, take your pick.....) are destined for the USA, not Europe or the UK. The majority of drugs coming into UK do so from Europe, generally having originated in the Far East. If you seriously want to help stop drugs getting into this country, beef up UK customs border checks, don't buy an MPA fleet.


2) Why is it that whenever anyone talks about the free passage of maritime trade being interrupted (the normal scenarios are pirates and/or the closure of the Straits of Hormuz) people seem to think it is down to the UK to sort out the problem. THIS WOULD BE A GLOBAL PROBLEM (Straits of Hormuz) or at the very least a EUROPEAN PROBLEM (pirates) with a proportionate response from those effected. Yes, the UK would suffer given such scenarios but we wouldn't be alone by any means, and the response wouldn't be solely down to us.


Having said all that, I actually think the UK should get back into the MPA/MMA game - as to whether we will?



TOFO has said, quite rightly, that there is little (nothing?) new on this thread. I could summarize most (all?) pprune MPA (MMA?) threads as including, in no particular order:


Ex MPA guys saying that non MPA guys don't understand the complexities of the task, and that it couldn't be done by UAVs.

UAV guys saying ex MPA guys don't understand current, and near current, UAV capabilities, and that they're too blinkered by the past.

Non MPA guys generally saying ex MPA guys are too blinkered by the past.

RN guys saying the RAF isn't interested, and the RN will be the ones to resurrect the role.

Most UK military personnel saying the lack of a national MPA capability is an issue.

Most sane UK contributors realizing there is no NEW money to be had in the defence budget.

Various people saying the history of the Nimrod casts a long shadow, and will be an obstacle (political, long memories, RTS and airworthiness issues, etc) to obtaining a new platform.




What have I missed?

Biggus, apologies, cross-purposes, I was responding to Riley Dove's assertion that the next big game would be Africa. Africa has been bubbling for decades and aside from Libya and Nigeria, do we have any real interests or even appetite for involvement on the dark continent?

And Biggus, I quite agree with your first two points in the preceding post.

What others have not addressed is just how many MPA/MMA would be needed for their postulated missions.

The strategic aspects are:

1. Do we want to get involved?

2. If we want to get involved will this be a unified international effort or will we want to maintain an autonomous capability?

3. If unified, how many patrol cycles would we be required to mount?

4. If autonomous, how many patrol cycles?

5. What mission rate? One aircraft per day or maybe 3 aircraft per mission per day?

Whatever way you cut that cake, the number of MR2s was adequate, the number of MRA4 was inadequate, and the postulated MPA/MMA numbers ludicrous.

The priority role for the Nimrod was always the protection of our SSBN fleet. I strongly suspect that that's no longer being covered as effectively and IUSS is only so good. Also, just wait for the political tears if someone decides to blockade the gulf with diesel submarines. What oil? The Nimrod could have sorted that type of problem out in fairly swift order.

RP, apart from saying oh dear nine times, what have you added to the debate. Care to answer the questions?

1. UK MPA in the Gulf the last couple of years?

2. No UK MPA presence.

3. No UK MPA basing, if we had MPA.

The basing I am talking about is the basing necessary to patrol the Gulf of Aden and down the African littoral or up in to the Red Sea; I know the Persian (or Arabian) Gulf is covered.

As we have not had an MPA and not needed an MPA do you see the Treasury coughing up extra cash or the joint staffs ceding parts of their budgets for a capability that we have, perforce, done without for a number of years - a whole decade to reach FOC perhaps.

Are you therefore, suggesting it would be okay to abdicate our responsibilities and free-ride on the resources of others...if we carry on the way we are going, both the United States and France are going to start seriously questioning what we bring to the party in return for their involvement, if they haven't done so already.

And given the fact that the MoD is currently running a surplus of up to £2 billion a year, which it is allowed to roll forward, do you not see there being even a slight possibility that some of this could be allocated to a MPA? What would you say for example, if the trend continued and we see a reverse bow wave from our experiences in the last decade? Would you still say "there's no money and no way in hell we'll be getting anything", given that the budget already has £8 billion in contingency funding written into it over the next 6 years, do you not think this is ever so slightly pessimistic?

Bastardeux,

I try to use language as precisely as my limited skills allow. In response to your:

".Are you therefore, suggesting it would be okay to abdicate our responsibilities and free-ride on the resources of others..."

I would ask you to reread my comment "with a proportionate response from those effected" and try to decide for yourself if I was advocating freeloading.


Rereading my comment - "Having said all that, I actually think the UK should get back into the MPA/MMA game" - might also be of some help........




I'm afraid I have to agree with TOFO - this thread is going nowhere fast! :sad: