UK's Carriers Left to Rust.
 

This is an interesting development. Of course, if Scotland were to leave the UK, then they probably wouldn't get to build any of the UK's ships.

Rust at Rosyth: Furious unions say flagship Navy carriers being built at Rosyth will be left to rot if Clyde shipyard jobs are axed - Daily Record

Mutinous talk from the GMB ... Anyone know how to 'Hot Wire' a carrier ;)

We call this preserving the industrial base in the US. It requires some very hard decisions at the highest levels of government to do this. The US lost its ability to build strategic transports when the C-17 line closed last year. The assumption is that it can be resurrected at some future date, but it's not entirely clear that is possible. On the shipbuilding front, we're down to two shipyards that can produce nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers and there are lots of hard decisions being made to preserve them. The Russians lost their ability to build large Navy ships decades ago, and their little adventure in Crimea/Ukraine was at least partially aimed at regaining that capability. Sadly for them, that adventure also cut off access to Ukrainian marine gas turbines, and combined with the cut off of German marine diesels, their shipbuilding industry is in dire straits because they have no (modern) indigenous sources for these major ship components.

Of course, doesn't everybody?

OK Chesty you're in ... I've got a rather large pair of Bolt Cutters ... Let's see how our OC PPRuNe Raiding Party, Courtney, wants to play it :ok:

The Blair government recognised this and published a policy paper called the "Defence Industrial Strategy" which codified (for the first time in the UK) the concept that certain industries and capabilities were nationally-significant strategic assets that should not be permitted to wither or be foreign owned.

On becoming Minister of Defence in 2010 Liam Fox (being a brainless arse who was under the impression that every day was "bring your best buddy to work day" in the Ministry of Defence) scrapped this policy as "ideologically unsound" saying that it was "socialist garbage" to even have such a strategy to interfere in the operation of the market. It was his view that Her Madge should always buy her military equipment off-the-shelf and from the lowest bidder, irrespective of nationality and regardless of the strategic consequences. Camoron, being very nearly as brainless in all respects, backed him in this in an act of neglect of his responsibilities for the defence of the realm that should really have resulted in some mild rebuke (like being hung, drawn, quartered and then having his head placed on a spike in whitehall as an example to others).

That this was a "bad idea"[tm] was a view which had cross-party support expressed loudly and frequently, for example in the 7th 2012-2013 session Defence Select Committee Report which said:

We believe that the absence of a defence industrial strategy which supports appropriate national sovereignty puts the UK at a disadvantage against competitor countries. Furthermore, we do not understand how we can have confidence in a national security strategy which does not show a clear grasp of what is needed for the defence of the United Kingdom, and how this can be ensured. We recommend that the Government reconsider the wisdom of not having a defence industrial strategy.

But wisdom and the camoron administration are essentially complete strangers. So whilst the USA (as standard-bearer for free-market capitalism) protects its strategic industries with rigid legislation like the Title 10 commitments [eg 10 USC Sec. 2464 and 10 USC Sec. 2466] the camoron administration carries on as a paid consultant and advocate for chinese industry and US defence contractors. To suggest this is less than ideal would be like calling the shooting down of MH17 an act of mild social deviation...

PDR

There's still time...

How come, whenever call me Dave has to make a decision he always makes the wrong one! Is it something in his Etonian schooling, that makes him unable to analyse a situation properly and, then use some common sense in the decision making process. :ugh: :rolleyes: :ugh:

Perhaps he can use some of the £12 billion overseas aid budget to enable our shipyards to not be closed down. Some strategic industries need to be protected for the national interest.

The difficulty in setting up protected strategic industries is that unions will take advantage of the situation not to preserve the industry nor the defense capability the industry provides, but to preserve union jobs. Given the political power of UK unions, I can understand how some politicians would balk at creating protected strategic industries.

Ahh.... another Trade union boss for life no doubt, rattling his sabre.. If they did sit and rust at least he would be secure in his job for life, while his members get thrown to the wind..

And as for the Wicked Witch of the North, It is about time she realised that her "power base" is less that the total that voted for UKIP, between her and that cretin Corbyn with his "majority of squat" they both make me want to throw up..

rant over :)

They remind me of the miners, another bunch of herberts, that believed the world owed them a job.

Money that the government has to borrow, yes borrow, to hand over to tyrants, dictators and despots. They know where their next S class Merc is coming from!

Interesting piece on the BBC website:-

Shipping forecast: visibility moderate to poor

Douglas Fraser Business/economy editor, Scotland 25 April 2016From the section Scotland business

It's less than eight years since the Ministry of Defence forced the merger of shipbuilding rivals BAE Systems and Vosper Thorneycroft. It was judged a waste of public money to retain so much capacity for the Royal Navy. Even after that had slimmed down the workforce and capacity, the Ministry of Defence decided to close one of the remaining shipyards.
Portsmouth took the hit with a decision more than two years ago, but the workforce that straddles the Clyde between the Govan and Scotstoun yards in Glasgow also lost hundreds of jobs.

The unions accepted that, on the basis that there would be security for the remaining jobs. Yet much of this seems to be getting thrown up in the air. Having spent a lot of time and money in reducing the scale of naval shipbuilding, the Treasury has commissioned a National Shipbuilding Strategy.

Drumbeat

This announcement was buried in the paperwork published with the Budget last month. The review is to be completed by the Chancellor's autumn statement. Led by industry veteran Sir Alan Parker, it is hard to fathom what it's trying to do. The official position is that it's to "look at the potential to build a new complex warship every two years". That's a much slower 'drumbeat' than we've been used to. "World-class ships...while ensuring value-for money", said the MoD media statement, when the idea was first set out by the Chancellor, in January last year. It went on to say this would "ensure continued investment in UK warship production, help maintain jobs, provide new apprenticeships and develop advanced engineering skills". Yet isn't that what had already been decided for the Clyde yards?

Jobs were lost on the Clyde but long-term security was expected Trade unions point to the proposal for a "frigate factory", costing £200m and at Scotstoun, providing a covered shed facility for all-weather construction. More efficient shipbuilding could, at last, win some export orders, at which British shipbuilding has done very badly of late.
Shipyards in Germany, France and Spain are contracted to build warships for export, but rarely British ones. The Royal Navy commissions very high-spec ships, and uses EU procurement rules on strategic industries to ensure they are built in Britain.

So the Clyde yards don't have to compete internationally for that work. And other navies don't want to pay the high price of British standards and work. Ensuring capacity for exports is another part of Sir John Parker's (vague) remit. But instead of the £200m export-efficient frigate factory proposed by BAE Systems and heartily endorsed by unions, half that amount is being committed to upgrading Govan for the Type 26.

Anti-submarine

Whitehall's Budget austerity means that, instead of 13 ships planned, only eight are now to be ordered - eventually. The start date appears to have slipped from this year to the back end of next year, with a slower drumbeat meaning fewer jobs are likely. The timing, the workforce and the commitment to retaining skills is down to negotiation between BAE Systems and the MoD. The UK government says that the Type 26 commitment to the Clyde yards has not changed. It has placed orders for five Offshore Protection Vessels, to keep the yards busy-ish. They may be nice-to-have, but on a tight budget, their strategic value isn't clear.

The MoD is not saying where it wants to build the Type 31, which is a new designation for cheaper, lighter, less well-armed ships. Five of them are supposed to join the sophisticated anti-submarine capability of the Type 26s.

Northern powerhouse

The Parker Review is being seen by unions and industry experts as a way of opening up options for expanding warship-building capacity at English yards. It's worth remembering that the intention to have a review was set out by George Osborne in January last year and in Portsmouth, when Conservatives faced the prospect of punishment by voters for the Hampshire shipyard's closure. Portsmouth has not fully closed down. The yard may not be building ships, but it is being leased for repair work. Bear in mind also that Mr Osborne has a big personal and political project to boost the economy of the "northern powerhouse". So shipyard capacity in Merseyside, Cumbria and Tyneside could come into play, perhaps to build the Type 31, or parts of the Type 26.

And there's another aspect of the strategic decision that isn't openly admitted: UK ministers said, before the independence referendum, that yards in an independent Scotland could not expect Royal Navy orders. With that political issue still very much alive, the MoD could use the Shipbuilding Strategy to open up options for warship building in England, rather than being solely reliant on Scottish yards.

All this is clearly part of a political game, at which trade unions, BAE management and the MoD are experienced. It's no coincidence it's happening less than two weeks from an election and two months from the EU referendum. This is when all the players can get maximum leverage over the Treasury.

Not sure there is a capacity to build in England anymore. River Tyne's ability has long gone- there is a relatively small yard at Hebburn and I forget its name (A and P maybe) that built I think the Flight Deck sections of the recent new carriers. Not sure about them building anything -no slipway. Swan Hunter are long gone and its workforce and architects mostly retired I think. Site was bulldozed and the cranes shipped to India.
Teeside does a bit of offshore work for O and G industry- jack up rigs I think. Hartlepool only dismantle ex USN last time I heard. Nothing at Sunderland at all really, although the Pallion yard still seems to operate as a small scale steel fabricator for offshore O and G but no cranes there as I recall.
Think that eras really gone for NE England. Taken for granted? The workers and skills have all dispersed or retired or are dead.
Cumbria - well not sure about them they haven't built anything large for the RN since the Albion and Bulwark.. Birkenhead hangs on but I have my doubts for their capacity. Belfast - mostly dismantle these days I recall.
England neglected this industry. Should have been nurtured, but then over a billion in taxpayers hard earned was spent propping it up for a while, then Thatch pulled the plug on it in the eighties and down it went. Steels going the same way now.
Over to China. Communism and or the Far East won in the end in this trade war.


KenV are you having a laugh about the unions? They're gone mate-outlawed and de-fanged by Thatch. Membership is a shadow of what it was.

Coff,

Big bolt cutters, black balaclavas, fake IDs, heaters and someone that knows how to drive a ship that isn't really finished yet. Anyone know if the engines are fitted yet? That might affect the getaway plan.

I read that HMS Queen Elizabeth's engines, or rather Electric motors powered by Gas turbine generators are fitted. However, ship still being fitted out.

Not sure if Windows 10 installed yet! Be careful to not overload the system by plugging in any iPods or iPhones if the radar is running...


:E

Excellent, I have the original Windows 10 installation disc. I think we're on.

Cameron is a Europhile. If you believe in the EU, there's no point worrying about keeping military production in the UK, because there'll soon be no UK military, only EU.

Couldn't Barrow do it, I know they build ships that sink, but would they have the infrastructure and also more importantly the deep water channel to accept it.

Also as they built sections at Portsmouth wouldn't they be better equipped to complete them, plus they just dredged the channel for it.


And Courtney, do be serious, you do not think the MOD would use something as modern and up to date as Windows 10, surely XP or one of the free systems would be a cheaper option.

Cmon guys, half a dozen Liverpudlian scallies would have it away in no time.:E

But how would they steer it, the first one onto the bridge would have the wheel away..

Windows 10 or XP?

Like the catapults: 'fitted for but not with'. Yeah right.


Batco

There was no requirement, of any sort, for catapults in the signed contract.

'fitted for but not with' was something invented by a politician after the event.

XP and Vista might have some advantages. Apart from anything else, neither would mysteriously download an update and announce that it will shut down and restart in 5 minutes. That might seriously bugger up our exit from whichever harbour its in at the moment.

But I just had another though. YES, ANOTHER thought - I had one in 1989. Once we liberate the ship, what will we do with it? Just been watching 007 and we might want to consider the highest bidder.

That's nothing. Do you realise that the EU is now trying to impose laws limiting the max g available to fighter aircraft in case the pilot blacks out? They also want to increase the minimum width of supermarket parking spaces so that they can accommodate German cars. They are working on legislation to force schools to teach German. They have already agreed new regulations to ban Gloucester Old Spots because their bacon contains too much flavour.

But, on the brighter side, it is wonderful that Scottish unions will now dictate UK Defence Policy. Excellent!

Neither will Windows 7/8/10 if you configure them that way. Even commercial Enterprise configurations point the update system to an internal update service (rather than the microsoft one) so that the company has full control over which updates are rolled out and when. That's how particular Windows lockdown configurations can be certified for use at essentially all national security levels.

PDR

I don't think any politician invented this at all - do you have a cite for that?.

I'm not familiar with the detailed QEC contract terms, but "fitted for but not with" has been a fairly common concept in UK and US military equipment for decades. In my time on the Harrier programme well had this concept for fitments like TIALD, the "big" (mk107) engine and numerous pieces of assorted avionics. The MOD only bought 40 mk107 engines, and a core part of the GR9/9A upgrade programme ensured that every airframe was fitted for the big engine even though at any given time only 20-25 aircraft would actually have one installed (making them GR9As rather than GR9s). If the big engine was taken out of an aeroplane and the small one installed it became a GR9 again.

It would not surprise me in the slightest to learn that the design configuration of the QECs explicitly made provision for fitting cats and/or ski-jumps at some later date simply because it would have been sensible to do so, in the same way HMS Ocean's design allowed for the possibility being re-roled as a Harrier platform.

PDR

What? Windows lockdown? Enterprise configurations? Coff, I hope you get all this. I thought this was going to be a simple smash and grab and then sell them to the highest bidding scrap merchants. No one mentioned Windows lockdown.

If we configure our firewall outreach access protocols properly, could this still work?

....and when the locked down version of Win10 gets hacked, and the boat disappears off to a small unfriendly port in the Eastern Med, will it be missed? :E

Imagegear

It depends on if it's running Google Earth as well..

Still, with running Windows you could log in remotely from your F-35 and control the ship, thus alleviating the need to clutter the place up with fisheads.

In April 2003 the official line was that adding catapults/arrestor gear was a nil cost upgrade, if required. It only takes one senior man to say it, followed by dirty looks at the horrified faces in the audience, to make it policy!

In early 1997, the in-house (Boscombe) prototype mission system for an RN helicopter was built around the forthcoming Windows 98. The famous logo appeared when initialised. Licensing problems meant contracting bespoke software to industry, which was years behind as they weren't a patch (!) on Boscombe.

The words strategic and UK do not co exist. Why wings about the detail of carriers no steel means no no ships no subs no aircraft ( engines gear etc) no tanks no guns no swords no spears, a new bronze age awaits us altho the French can still provide a nuclear deterrent as they wont want the fallout from any attack on southern England.

Don't worry Courtney ... Once we secure the Bridge, I have a USB Flashdrive that is capable of overriding most installed OS's. So far it's worked on a Vauxhall Corsa, Costa Vending Machines and Mrs Coff's Neff oven ... So I don't see a problem with a part build RN Carrier :ok:

I've also got a large tarpaulin ... So we can cover it when we 'park' it (sorry I'm not fully conversant with technical ship driving talk) on the Cuckmere here in the deep South of England ... there is also a rather good pub for a post Op celebration :ok:

Good call on the need for "Heaters" ... as it does get a bit nippy up north :}

I thought we might 'invoice' T1stSL for the 'Recovery' rather than sell for scrap ?

Sorry Tuc for interrupting your serious contribution ;)

It's got the makings of a good film, stealing a carrier back out from under the noses of the Jocks, the trouble is knowing Hollywood they would ruin it by probably swooping the carrier for some old destroyer, the Clyde for some river in China, possibly like the Yangtze, and then make her run the gauntlet of Chinese takeaways in the dark...

How very nice of Rosyth to offer to store the carriers for us, should save a packet on mothballing fees. Shame that their storage might mean that the 26's might have to be built 'dahn sarf' due to lack of room at Rosyth.

Nothing to do with the pilot, its about passing the emissions test.

We will not get the F35s to fly from them until about 2050 (sorry I'm probably being a bit optimistic there), so there is no rush to get the carriers out. We'll save a fortune in fuel costs simply by leaving them where they are for a few decades. Then the only problem will be updating to Windows 2050.

Does taking the Carriers Hostage mean that the GMB is also taking on responsibility for the nuclear Subs moored at Rosyth?

Fixed it for you... "Nothing to do with the max Gz, its about the pilot passing the emissions test".

My Grandad was a miner called Herbert. What's your point?

Did he borrow Bob's torque wrench?

PDR

OK,

Infil

Suggest, we borrow a Chinook and stealthily (ha) approach direct to ship at 03:00 hrs on Sunday using borrowed NVGs. The skeleton crew of fishheads will all be drunk and asleep...