Melchett - HMS Endurance has already been slated for withdrawal. My father captained the previous ship of the name from 78-80, and he and his predecessors had all warned the FO of the impending problems in the FI. He then worked his backside off in the first half of 1982 making sure we got them back again.

He and I were wallpapering on the last Sunday of Jan 82 when the duty Commander rang him from the MoD to tell him of the landings on S Georgia. We had lunch and went back to London (where I also lived and worked) early.

Those who forget the lessons of history are condemned .....

Nigegilb wrote:-
"Absolutey 100% agree with Melchett. Where the hell is Cameron in all this, does he have any balls? Where are the Tories? If they fail to support the Armed Forces in their hour of need they will never be forgiven."


Bad form I know to quote oneself, but in http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=255439 I wrote:-
"However, I despair at the inability of the so-called political Opposition to really take Blair, Brown and Browne to task over their policies and their facile statements about giving the troops everything they need....... On Newsnight last night, Jeff Randall (a journalist) made a much better fist of supporting the troops than David Davies. Whilst Ruth Kelly..............well, words fail me.
Should Brown become PM then a bad situation will become a desperate situation. I feel for all of the Armed Forces who are putting their lives on the line."


Just when will Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition get off their collective backsides and do what they are supposed to do - oppose the current disastrous policies of this pathetic excuse of a Government. [/rant of]

To rub it in, Timewatch starting just now (21.00) on BBC2 relates to the first submerged-target torpedo kill in history, 1945, RN. Back when we had a significant Navy, of course. :(

And of course no one else is interested:

Islamic Republic News Agency

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu...4065182033.htm

Kommersant -Russia

http://www.kommersant.com/p-9803/r_530/British_Navy/

China View

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...nt_5571058.htm

I am sure if we want petrol and raw materials all these guys will help us against the pirates, terrorists and anyone else who wants to take a pot shot at Uk flagged vessels - don't forget 95% of trade comes by sea.

:=

Tim, these links may interest you:

The War on Terror - At Sea (ARRSE)

Navy to cut its fleet by half (ARRSE)


This from the MOD

The Royal Navy and Gulf operations (RN site)

Maritime Security Operations (RN site)

And two stories from the Telegraph

Oil tanker boarded by pirates off Basra

Navy Chief seeks deal with Hoon

Try going on YouTube - and entering Iran Navy in the search box..

Airborne Artist
I was serving in END when I flew ashore and watched the Argentines come ashore in S. Georgia with your father's relief, Nick Barker.

Luckily I am led to believe that the current status of the present END is more secure than that engraved on my Zippo lighter saying HMS ENDURANCE Final Commission.

HWB

HMS Brilliant, an apology. Yes sorry of course you were there.

Lew Page, sounds like something that might be useful in the heads! My point is that the two 22s were fine down south, it was the 21s that suffered.The little pen picture posted now puts his Torygraph "comment" article in to total perspective. If you don't know what I am on about, sorry, I would not wish to give him any more publicity.

Melchett01,

I’ve been quiet because there’s nothing happening other than nonsensical pieces of defence reporting in the Torygraph, a rag that hardly has a good track record in recent defence stories.

MoD funding appears to be fine, it’s the fact that the MoD is so p*ss poor at managing projects and allocating funds that appears to be the problem.
The UK spends more on defence than any other nation on the planet other than the USA, forty eight billion dollars in 2005/6 so the fact that we have the 2nd largest defence budget on the planet, that the Chancellor allocated an additional 600 million to defence and 84 million to intelligence in the last pre-budget report leaves me with not much to say on defence funding.
HOW the MoD spends it’s money, now that is another matter.

If they do decide to reduce the readiness of 6 RN escorts for the rest of this financial year, so what? Iraq and Afghanistan is where the money should be spent.

Anyway, how is 6 escorts supposed to be “half the RN fleet?” Where do they get their figure of an RN fleet of 43 ships? In reality the fleet has 25 escorts, 2 carriers and 1 in reserve, a helicopter carrier, 2 Assault ships, 4 SSBNs, 9 SSNs, 8 MCMVs, 17 Patrol vessels, 6 Survey and hydrographic vessels and 18 RFAs?

I think the Torygraph needs s new maths correspondent let alone defence.

The actual amounts spent on the defence budget is largely irrelevant if it isn't enough to do the job we're being asked to do. We could spend $100 million, but if we need $120 million then funding isn't fine. And I don't think there is anyone with a grip on reality and the actual facts that could argue otherwise that what we are getting is enough to do what we are being asked to do.

We're desperate for more rotary, more so in AF than IZ, but even the SH fleet is having its budgets butchered despite it needing the exact opposite. Do you really think that any cash generated from axing these escorts will make it to the front-line and JHC in particular? Well having just been told that we are slashing the budget in SH yet again, I somehow don't think so. And we both know that any reduction in RN capability will not be a temporary measure - we will never get those vessels, or the funding associated with them back.

The simple black and white fact is that defence needs more money. End of story. I agree that MOD couldn't organise a p1ss up in a brewery, but at the end of the day it is Gordon and Tony who set the govt priorities and decide how much the MOD gets. The buck stops with them.

Navy Cuts
 

I haven't seen it posted here, but there is an active petition on the Number 10 website which readers may wish to sign, the text of which is:

" We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop the destruction of the Royal Navy and spend the defence budget more wisely. "

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/savethenavy/

Sorry if it has in fact already been posted here.

Where do you get your figures from 'Pr00ne'?

The military budget of the UK varies on internet sources from $47.4 billion (SIPRI) to $58.6 billion (official budget).

The military budget of PRC varies from $29.9 billion (official budget), through $42 - 51 billion (RAND Corp) to $90 billion (US DoD).

Interestingly Japan, a country with 'just' a self defence force and no nuclear capabilities is considered to have the 4th highest defence budget in the world.

yes, but a billion goes a lot further in the PRC...

The proposal was/is for six out of 25 frigates and destroyers to be laid up in "extended readiness", so the Telegraph may have been better off saying a quarter.

Yesterday, HMS Montrose left for a deployment in the Med. Last week, HMS Campbletown (one of the ships under threat) also left on deployment, this time to the Middle East. Both of these deployments are part of the war on terror.

As for a situation that may need naval forces, what about this:

Things will happen in the Gulf in the next couple of years. The nuclear stand off my lead to an Israeli or US strike, Tehran may decide to hit back at the international community for imposing sanctions, or (as seems likely) Iran and Saudi Arabia will come to blows.

Shipping in the Gulf will need to be defended - which might be tricky with a Fleet considerably smaller than we need. Admiral West said we need "about thirty" frigates and destroyers. Have we got about thirty? No!

What if Tehran decides that seaborne resupply to forces in Iraq will cease? Having to defend convoys for a thousand miles, looking out for submarines, mines, shore based missiles, missile armed attack craft, aircraft (some with anti ship missiles).....

I seem to remember something similar during the Iran/Iraq war.

Lest we forget...
 

95% of our trade goes by sea. We cannot feed ourselves for we import more than half of our food.

There are just three sides to the defence of our island nation and it doesn't take a military genius to work them out; just simple common sense and a knowledge of history. Unfortunately, not only are there no military geniuses in the Treasury - who control the budget allocated to the Ministry of Defence - there also seems to be no-one with any common sense. Nor anyone in the MOD with the guts to stand up to the Chancellor.

1. What we need from our Royal Navy is the ability to ensure that our food supplies cannot be seriously disrputed. That requires at the very least, a navy equipped with the best possible anti-submarine capability.

2. What we need from our army is the ability to prevent any foreign soldier setting foot on UK soil. They willl need the active assistance of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force in achieving this aim.

3. What we need from our Royal Air Force is the ability to prevent any foreign military aircraft entering UK airspace, or releasing a weapon from outside our airspace that can penetrate it.

The three services are interdependent and we no longer need to project military power outside our own direct sphere of interest as outlined above. Those three requirements are the very minimum that must be achieved. Anything less and we are no longer a sovereign nation.

... but perhaps that is what our unanimously pro-EU politicians really want?

BLAIR'S BIG QUESTION

And only last night shadow defence secretary Liam Fox attacked the Government's record, telling the WMN: "The Royal Navy believed they had escaped Labour's cuts in the Strategic Defence Review eight years ago. It's now clear that to finance their campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan the Government is looking to downsize the Navy, cutting our future capabilities and risking our ability to deal with new emerging threats.

"With the Sea Harriers already withdrawn, leaving a gap in our fleet protection and proposals on the table to reduce the number of vessels in the fleet, the Navy will have little left to defend British interests worldwide."

Good to see the premature retirement of the Sea Harrier mentioned - it goes without saying that less ships means there will be less surfaced based defence, increasing the chance of something disasterous happening.

On local news last night, it was mentioned that Blair made much of "the largest shipbuilding programme for decades" (sic), citing the Future Carriers. Now if they had actually been ordered/passed main gate this would have been a valid point, but they haven't.....