certainly in the light of day what you’ve said sounds much more plausible and i do concede now that the WW2 destroyers- T15 ASW frigates wasn’t bad, they were effectively new ships but i still can’t advocate the half arsed conversions of T16’s it would have been much wiser to convert more T15’s and allow most of the other ww2 era ships to be binned earlier

as for T17, I’m not too sure about the potency of a ASW corvette in the 1000t, 200ft region

Again you’re right about speed being a large drawback on the T11’s, i was under the impression that they were capable of 27kt which would suffice and now that i think about it we got T12’s instead of T11’s making it ******* stupid to put it lightly.

T21 was not a desirable ship in the 70’s when they were commissioned, being made of ally and commissioned with an obsolete SAM system

thats not even touching on the larger escorts

The later Type-17 studies were not corvettes but fully fledged 4000 ton plus Frigates that would have made worthy Leander replacements. You also seem to have your conversions mixed up, Type-15 was the deep modernisation that produced a truly effective ship of which 23 emerged. The Type 16 was the more limited program and that produced just 10 units.

The Royal Navy was well aware that the Type 21’s were not great ships and they were ordered out of neccessity rather than desire, that is why there was only eight of them.;)

I was using 1970 prices for comparison. Inflation would have put all those prices up together, so the relative prices stay the same. Two tigers doesn’t equal one CV in manpower terms but it gets you most of the way there, about 1900 men. Eagle required a crew of 2700 give or take, so now we only have to find another 800. And she actually had these crewmen up to 1972 so it’s a matter of making cuts elsewhere. I would argue those men were more usefully employed aboard a carrier than some of the more obsolete escorts then in service with the fleet. Royal Navy manpower during this period was a lot igher than today even with the shortage, so finding the extra crew was not as big a deal as today. That is not to say it would have been easy by any means. As for running costs, the aircraft for Eagle’s air group were flying anyway (albeit in RAF colours) and her crew were spread out amongst the fleet. I’m only saying the priorities could have been different, and I’d gladly trade 5 or 6 1970s frigates to keep a carrier in service. Selling Hermes as a going concern whilst still CTOL will also free up manpower and resources. The path taken wasn’t the only option.

In 1970 prices Invincible was estimated to cost £60million for comparison purposes.

I would argue that one needs to think about procurement inflation as well as actual inflation. I suspect there would still be a greater price difference.

The carrier issue does not just involve the ship but also the infrastructure and cost associated with its airwaing, it all adds up. And you would have to lose 3 or 4 escorts to find your extra crew for one carrier and I would suggest that maintaining one carrier is less useful than two helicopter cruisers given availability, though obviously Tigers are not a great choice.

I love the fact that last night, Channel 5 broadcast “Brand/Ross What the ******* was all the fuss about” summing up how i feel.

End of the day, the did something wrong they should be punished rightley and i think this sitatuion got out of hand by repeating it on the NEWS, time after time again, making more people phone in because they were pretending to be “offended”.

I think you will find that most decent human beings had no need to pretend to be offended, making prank phone calls to the elderly is rightfully frowned upon in society and borderline illegal.

The economics argument against retaining the carriers doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, simply because the money we allegedly didn’t have was spent anyway, to much less useful effect. Phantomising Eagle was estimated to cost £5million in 1970 prices (compared to £32million for Ark Royal), and yet at the same time around £15million was spent converting the two Tiger class cruisers to operate just four Sea Kings each. Eagle carried six Sea Kings in addition to her jets and so was arguably a more useful ASW asset than either Tiger. Each cruiser soaked up over 900 men each so ditch them and you are well on the way to providing the manpower for a carrier. Also between 1971 and 1973 £25million was spent converting Hermes from a ctol carrier to a comando carrier to replace Albion, which was in good material condition and not in urgent need of replacement by any means. Albion was actually sold to a private company for further service as an oilfield support ship but the scheme fell through and she was scrapped. So far I’ve managed to save about £40million without trying too hard. More savings could be found without looking too hard I believe. On the same budget that was spent historically I am convinced the carrier force could be maintained through the 70s and beyond. The Invincibles were not cheap by any means either, and it has to be remembered that the size of a warship has very little efect on the final cost of buying. Keep the missile systems to the minimum necessary for self defence (as the US does) and the price alters a lot more than reducing size by 20% for example. This goes a long way towards bridging the gap between what can be afforded and what can’t.

Cost of escorts has been mentioned, as in we couldn’t afford eight type 82 (about £30million each at the time), and instead we bought 14 type 42s (estimated at about £20million). Looks like the money was spent anyway to me…

Running costs, Running costs, Running costs, Running costs.;)

Oh, and man power shortage.;)

The Ark Royal/Eagle had crews of over 2000, ditching both Tigers does not even get you enough men for one carrier. Then there was the cost of running the air wing. Certainly the decision to follow Srk Royal and not Eagle was a mistake but the timeline will always end the same way.

And when looking at figures take rampant inflation into account, all is not as it seems. How much would a Type-82 have cost in 1975? Allot more than £30 million.

Perhaps, not too sure though the money still wasn’t there (lets face it bean counters wouldn’t spare the money to Phantomise Eagle so 1 or 2 new carriers of that size was a nonstarter).

maybe the funds would have slipped through If the RN had bitten the bullet in the mid 50’s and accepted the fleet was going to shrink drastically instead of building cheap crap frigates based on WW2 destroyers (T14,15,16 also a reduction of Bay and Loch class that survived WW2) and worked on new designs with far smaller numbers (small number of T11, slow diesel ASW frigate based on the Leopards this would have served as a cheap to mass produce combatant in the event of a war instead of the WW2 compromises) in which case by the late 60’s there would have been manpower and a little more money to spare to keep the carriers in service longer and the next generation escorts such as T82 and T19(effectively a 40knotter ASW frigate based on T12 weapons [IIRC she was binned and the cheaper tin can T21’s were ordered]).

that could have free’d up enough funds and resources to keep Vicky serving into the early 70’s(perhaps later if she could’ve been Phantomised) Ark Royal and Eagle serving until the early 80’s at least (on the likelihood of Ark Royal spending most of the 70’s in refit), leading to a replacement class in the 80’s in a high-low mix of 4 with 2 upper end carriers replacing Ark Royal and Eagle, and alot cheaper slightly smaller derivative without cats and arrestors running on diesels to replace Bulwark and Hermes in the commando carrier role

all of this said though chances are Labour would’ve still attacked the navy left, right and centre in the 60’s

urgh, what could have been if the eyes were open for it.

This was a not a Labour problem but one of pure economics. Examine the pursuit of escorts for the CVA-01 concept and it becomes apparent that the whole idea was bordering on unaffordable from the start. Also remember that Nott defence Review (conservative) would have ripped the heart out of the Navy. The harsh reality is that full size fleet carriers were unaffordable and were only going to get more so.

The Type-19 would have been a very poor purchase, Type-12 weapons maybe but appalling sensors, The only reason the ship was expensive was because of the ludicrous machinery set she got for her 40knots. A sensible British frigate design of the era were the Type 17 studies but these were too expensive to have with CVA-01’s and Type 82s. Slow ASW assets were anything other than wise in a post Type-XXI world that was rapidly moving towards SSN’s. The actually highly effective destroyer conversions produced vessels that could make a good speed in heavy seas, a must really. Although I would agree with the WW2 era frigates needing to be abandoned.

The problem with Diesel engines is that they are a greater maintenance burden and a bulkier than gas turbines, the decision by the RN to move towards a standard frigate and destroyer gas turbine machinery set seems sensible

With all due respect I find it a real flaw in logic when assumptions about why there have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11 are due to the Bush Administration.

That is like saying that your new padlock on your front door works to prevent burglaries because none have taken place. How do you even know if anybody tried to break in? It is simply flawed logic to make that kind of assumption.

Perhaps I am wrong. I do not know. Maybe the Bushies did break up some attacks. Maybe Jack Bauer from “24” is real. With due respect to others in this thread you do not know either. In the absense of information to prove either argument I think we should wait for the historians to decide in future years.

The loss of the Afghan infrastructure made terrorist attacks against the US mainland almost impossible over night. Note most of those that have been successful since (in Europe and South East Asia) have been undertaken by local cells rather than projected from the Middle East.

But unfortunately, we tried to do lots of high cost projects in the 1950s. Stress the lots. If we’d done fewer, more of them might actually have been affordable.

Not just fewer but also more reasonable ones, stainless steel mach 3 interceptors and strategic bombers anyone?;)

Just as a little footnote to the Ross/Brand ‘controversy’, last Friday I settled down to watch the film ‘Speed’, which was aired in the Jonathon Ross slot. I’m certain the continuity announcer was having a sly comment on the whole affair when he unmistakably introduced the film as ‘starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra B*ll*cks’.

😀

What was disgusting about the Brand/Ross affair was not its subject content or its use of language but the fact that it was a joke against an elderly man, if you want to talk about sleeping with averagely attractive women then fine, but dont phone up their grand parents to taunt them about it.