Anyway, what is this about steel that doesn’t rust? :confused: Every ship owner in the world, commercial or military, or operator of offshore rigs and equipment in coastal areas would love to know :rolleyes:

Well, if you buy boats never commissioned properly that have sat rusting and decaying for a decade and don’t do a proper evaluation of whether you have the capabilities to re-activate the things don’t blame anybody else for the f**k up. Same with hatches, if the crew don’t maintain good sea discipline then don’t point fingers at others.

Personally I’d like to see more OPV’s in the RN, the River class seem decent enough boats and good enough for Police duties.

Will there be a 6th. or 7th. generation fighter as we know it? Many think the current programs will be the last before the UCAV comes of age. Who knows what form of carrier will be required for UCAV ops?

Don’t worry Francois, it’s just the way the whole Internet has gone. When I first went on line the Internet was small, but what there was tended to be pretty good, I’m a literature lover and in the early days there were some wonderful sites on fine literature, often maintained by students as a labour of love. Now the web is HUGE but the vast majority of it is crap, pornography, marketing/sales BS or just plain junk, and nowadays finding the golden nuggets can be hard work.

My brother helped build one of those subs!. We told the Canadians they’d been layed-up, unmaintained, for a decade. They signed off on the refurb work…their issue!!!! :rolleyes:

Yeah, but it’s a lot easier to make a **** up buying subs that have been left to rust and decay for years and then blame somebody else. As the saying goes, buyer beware, the UK didn’t exactly hide anything on the status of the four Upholders and Canada had plenty of opportunity for inspection.

This whole thread is nonsense as everybody knows that all of space is owned by the Queen of England already, god bless her!

The most serious problems have effected the lead ship of the class, the ex-Upholder/Chicoutimi. The Upholders might be a “reasonable” design, but have not proven to be reliable.

Most of these problems were initial production faults and errors common to almost any new design of major vessel. They were never fully commissioned and the RN had no interest in doing the hard work of the shake down to get the design up to advertised standards. This isn’t just me being a British big it up guy, I’ve seen enough warships to know that major problems following delivery are neither unusual nor usually a long term problem with utilisation. To introduce a totally new design to service is a highly demanding job.