Defence And The Strategic Deficit

Interesting article in the current issue of Sea Breezes on the future of the Navy. Here’s part of it:

http://www.seabreezes.co.im/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=427:naval-gazing&catid=40:other-features&Itemid=62

Many here are going to shout and scream at that article and I don’t agree with it entirely, but it does raise the questions that have yet to be fully answered and perhaps are more pertinent now than ever –
what is the RN for?
What do we actually want it to do?
What should the UK contribute to global maritime security?
Government, Admirals and the public will give a multitude of answers to those questions and as yet there appears to be no definitive answers, the defence review if anything has left the answers even more elusive.

Interesting article in the current issue of Sea Breezes on the future of the Navy. Here’s part of it:

http://www.seabreezes.co.im/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=427:naval-gazing&catid=40:other-features&Itemid=62

Also what Cunard wants is hardly anything radical! Effectively all their ships for the last twenty to thirty plus years have been an evolution of design and build concepts common in the cruise ship industry.

On that note I do feel it was a disaster British shipyards missing the Cruise ship boom of the eighties, nineties and naughties. Then again govenment after government failed to support and invest in the modernisation British yards needed to compete in that sector! If key British yards had been churning out Cruise liners for the last thirty years it would of made the millitary ships far cheaper to build. In effect the large proportion of the workforce would focus on bog standard steel bashing for cruise liners whilst a nascent small corp of workers could of been retained with the more advanced skills for millitary shipbuilding.

Exactly. Cunard is a commercial customer with a clear idea of what it wants in its liners. It tells the shipbuilders what it wants, they do it, job done. Government, by contrast, is a schlerotic labyrinth of mediocrity and obfuscation. There is no commercial imperative to get anything done, so it doesn’t get done. And lo, it hasn’t been.

The delays in the design and construction of the CVFs IS indefensible. Cunard needed world beating ships built on time and budget so that they could put them in service and start reaping the rewards. Why shouldn’t the same criteria apply to a military project such as the CVF? A year is too short obviously but 20+ years is a disgrace for the UK.

Much of the delays with CVF are down to government prevaricating rather then an inability of British industry to design and construct the ships.

The design and prime contractor was chosen January 2003, even with the messing about forming the carrier alliance Main gate was expected within months of that decision. Instead the Labour government put it off with an extended assesment phase then deselected the prime contractor before putting things off further with a two stage main gate and further negotiations to reform the carrier alliance. The second stage of main gate was then missed again though government prevaricating. Finally main gate was approved in 2008 when Gordon Brown got jumpy about jobs in his constituency.

Without all the messing about main gate could easily of been in 2004-5 with both carriers easily into build now, actually QE would be entering into final fitting out by now!

So what is the CVF? A social programme? An industry-policy programme?

Yes… all of the above, and more.

Money from the U.S. and ships built in France and Italy. The UK as a flag of convenience for historic reasons.

Is hull building really a “strategic” capability for the UK? A major percentage of the CVF’s systems come from abroad, or from UK companies with international partners, R&D sites, production sites.

If it were about the best bang for the bug the CVF would be built in SKorea.

So what is the CVF? A social programme? An industry-policy programme?

Given that the Carriers were supposed to be as simple to build as possible using as much civilian design ideas for materails and construction, the fact that Cunard has built 3 super liners just as complicated as the CVF and yet not a single CVF as even been launched over the same timeframe is telling. Each Cunard vessel is unique and has been designed and built efficiently and to high standards with the last, the Queen Elizabeth taking just over a year. The delays in the design and construction of the CVFs IS indefensible. Cunard needed world beating ships built on time and budget so that they could put them in service and start reaping the rewards. Why shouldn’t the same criteria apply to a military project such as the CVF? A year is too short obviously but 20+ years is a disgrace for the UK.

I would say he/they compared Cunard and UK’s MoD just to point out a company, forced to aim at his business day by day, doesn’t judge investments as pure expenses.

I don’t believe it meaning exactly that as Cunard order and purchase big cruise ships, it should be as easy for a country to order and purchase a big carrier.

The comparison should be about tge terms under the two value and weight thier options, pointing out an alleged short sighted and mistakenly cheap MoD’s analisys.

The comparison of building a carrier with public money compared to building a floating hotel with private money is hilarious. I love these pheonix articles, so sane, so balanced….:D