Finally...
 

Got the Conservative manifesto at last and its defence statement. link.Conservative Manifesto 2017 PDF In Full: Theresa May Publishes Her Programme For Government | HuffPost UK

Wasn't that easy to find actually, if anyone's got the link better, then upload it.
Page 43,44,45 details that both carriers will completed and presumably somehow operated (not immediate mothballing as the previous PM stated).
8 new frigates and 5 offshore patrol vessels planned and promised. 4 nuclear sub bombers.
Reading it carefully I find the stuff about flexible contracts really interesting- I thinking no longer 22 year careers but more a mix and match of people drifting in and out to suit operational requirements. I've said this for years, especially for the RN. £178 billion promised in job creation building schemes over the next five.
There's not much about the RAF, its mostly maritime focused approach.
Anyway, lock it up again mods? Like the last thread. Its not as if its not important is it, the choices in the next election? We are truly at a political cross roads. Implications strategically should be right at the front of every manifesto, not tucked back in the arse of it.
Anyway lock it up. Someone put up a thread about Chipmunks in 1962 Yorkshire ey?:yuk::ugh::ouch::=:mad:

"8 new frigates" - I thought it was suppsoed to be 12?

In fact it was the last PM who announced that both carriers would be brought into service, back in 2014. As to frigates, there were planned to be 13 Type 26 but the 2015 SDSR said that instead there would be only 8, replacing the 8 specialised anti-submarine Type 23s, while the 5 non specialist Type 23s would be replaced by "at least" 5 of a new type of light general purpose frigate - now known as the Type 31. There are also the 5 new patrol vessels, which look likely to replace 4 existing ships.

After the manifesto was published I read the D Tel. carefully [as carefully as an old fool could] to see what was said about defence. I could find nothing ...... not saying it wasn't there, but I found nowt.

"Its Tommy this and Tommy that .............."

In these piping tmes of peace, naught for my comfort on defence.

Except Jezza and the shadow cabinet would probably make an even bigger ars*holes of it.

And the Air Defence warships that will help defend the QE carriers? Do we have enough? Or the men to man/person them?

What is a "nuclear sub bomber", HS? Are you referring to MPA, or is this a sad attempt to describe a nuclear submarine? Even the politicians call them Dreadnought ballistic missile boats in their .pdf posture statement.


Suggestion: if you call out the mods, it's a great way to get your thread closed. Sometimes it might be smarter just to post and not wave a red flag and draw attention to yourself.

MPN 11 - I see nothing to say they are going to order more than the 6 current T45's which are the Air Defence assets going forward - Frostb. accurately desccribes the history of the replacement T26's and T31's

On the T31's little idea of what they'll be, very little design work done when decision was announced. May be off the shelf; some discussion they may be T26 hulls with a spartan fit or an upgraded corvette type - don't hold your breath..........

Spending promises remain just that if "there is no money!" (remember that phrase?). Even with genuine commitment within Labour to those manifesto promises (and shadow front-bench comments on Trident throw doubt on that!) where does the money come from? Business and "the rich" are highly mobile and can easily migrate; Corbyns plans to make them pay may well have the reverse of the intended effect. Then what?

MPN11 asks if we will have enough air defence warships to defend the carriers.

It's a fair question and it's worth being clear about this because there are some hoary old memes that keep appearing in forum discussions and article comments. One is that we don't have enough escorts to escort the carriers, the other is along the lines of "shame the carriers won't have any aircraft har har"

On aircraft, HMG is committed to having around 40 F35B airframes on the books by the time of FOC at the end of 2023, to give the ability to field 24 in two front line squadrons. The ambition for IOC at the end of 2020 is rather lower - probably around 8-12 airframes at that point. So whatever your views on the merits of the aircraft itself, the repeated suggestion that there won't be any is cobblers.

As to escorts, the RN has 19. There are 6 air defence destroyers plus 13 frigates. That number is forcast to stay the same until "the 2030s" from which time HMG plans to increase the number, via additional T31s.

As a rule of thumb, for long term sustainability you can deploy around a third of your escorts on a continual basis, with the rest at different stages in the cycle. So that means around 2 Type 45s and around 4 - 5 frigates at any one time. In peacetime the escort group for a carrier might comprise a T45, a T23, and typically one vessel each contributed by the US and France to demonstrate collaborative working. Clearly that's manageable and we could add a hull or two to that if needed, subject to how many vessels we need to deploy elsewhere. But clearly there's not much left in the tank, and the RN could do with a few more escorts because we're in "minimum we can get away with" territory at present.

In a crisis you can "surge" to a higher deployed figure on a short term basis. The figure broadly doubles, so with a bit of luck and ideally a bit of notice we might be able to deploy 3-4 T45s and 8-9 frigates if say "doing a Falklands" or something comparable. Given that all the vessels are far better armed that they were back in the early 1980s, that would represent a pretty reasonable task force.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no apologist for HMG and I believe the RN needs more escorts in order to do what we expect of it. It's just that the hoary old memes really piss me off and I wanted to inject a bit of balance.

Good post FrostC

I think the main worry is that the CG will be an additional escort task on top of the already very thinly spread deployment. In some cases the CG will replace the current vessel deployment but not all - hard to see it being used chasing drug smugglers in the W Indies for example. But I guess you could argue that an enhanced River Class (or something like the Omani "Khareef" class) would be a better buy for that sort of job anyway.

PS - we could aslo do with a few more Astutes if one is going to be attached to the CG......