If commonality is a concern, would it not make more sense for the RN to stick with the Aster 15 – since it’s already in use on the Type 45s – rather than introduce a new weapon system?

Did we actually buy any? I thought an earlier cost-cutting measure was to only employ the -30?

You see these declarations drive me nuts. I am a fan of carriers, we should have them and I would prefer a scenario where we kept the ones we have. But exaggerting the truth, presenting the ignorant public with some phantom, scare-mongering scenario does little to help the case.

They have not presented a good, water tight case for why Britain needs carriers. The scenario they present is a very remote, barely possible, certainly not possible now or in the near future so in a perverse way as you point out they have actually helped the case against the carrier force.

The way a junior minister was able to swat away the points made by Admiral West this morning on Radio 4 was a case in point. There are excellent arguments for why we need carriers. Deterring Argentina from the Falklands is not one of them for all sorts of reasons.

I didn’t hear the Radio 4 one, but he (West) did come on to Radio 5 shortly after and give a (presumably) similar discussion/talk. To be fair to him, he did provide it as an example. Given the general knowledge of the (as you say ignorant) bulk of the lay public, there are only three military examples that have registered in the last 30 years – Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan, and as alternative examples, I’m not sure the latter two would have worked!

He also made the point in light of if Argentina seized the islands, it makes any retaking impractical. Yes 4 Typhoons and Garrison for deterrance, Ark Royal as the follow-up, if needed.

I also think he is right, but not for the same reasons. The Govn/MOD is right that we probably don’t need carrier air for the next 10 years. The decision and associated reports does send out the wrong message – it is clear the Cameron and Clegg would have done away with the carriers if able, they are only keeping them because they have been “lumbered” with them (at least Labour got one thing right;) ). There is still a review to survive in 2015 which may yet see the F35 requirement disappear and with it carrier air. This can be convieniently justified by the fact that we have managed for the previous 5 years without. So there is a message to, say, Argentina, that Britain is not committed to carrier air and may yet do away with it completely.

The SDSR is a plan in part for 10 years, and I doubt we are alone in planning for 10 years presumably. Argentina may have no appreciable capability now – but that does not mean they won’t in the future, and if the Falklands are still in their pysche, then that is likely to feature in that planning. Resources makes it more of a cost/profit calculation….

Thanks Jonesy for the correction – but beyond the sour grapes in the press from “sources” at Kinloss, do you know why the US decided to operate two P-3 from Kinloss after a recent exercise ended for at three days and possibly as much as week after the exercise ended.

Also I am interested in your take on how well the UK will cope without a dedicated MPA.

This last bit is possibly the bit of the SDSR that annoyed the hell out of me the most (even more than harrier, which was my first “idiots” response) . Given that our ship numbers are so few, I cannot see a frigate providing any sort of remotely comparable ability. I accept a helo maybe more durable on station, but you have to get the helo to the station – how many helo platforms to give the same/similar response time?

Not enough helos available to be detatched from the surface units I would have thought, and then how far out would they operate?

It annoyed me so much, I couldn’t sleep, and I actually got up at 3am and wrote a snot-o-gram to Department and local MP! *. I know it won’t make the blindess bit of difference, but it got it out of my system and I could sleep again……

* my first political posturing outside of the pub ever:o

Maybe it’s time for a commonwealth navy. Intergrate the navies of the old commonwealth countries to help protect sea lanes and do joint exercises together.

Why would they, it will only appear as an attempt (correctly) to cover our own deficiences. Geographically it doesn’t appear to helpful either. Maybe 30+ years ago this would have been a goer.

I think, if anyone was interested, there perhaps could have been some scope for common ship designs and building (not just using CAN/AUS?NZ as a destination for second hand vessels).

The whole F-35 abortion should be canned! The navy should start with a clean sheet of paper and figure out exactly what it needs. The AF could probably make do with lic. production of Typhoon.

All that effort and throw it away?

The US buy a foriegn plane? And people think us (UK) buying FRench is a strange concept…!!!!!!!

Hello! Flubba is back.

Having only 3 subs is moronic sending one out on patrol will be a massive deal hence another reason for CASD. I would prefer to keep CASD as it’s the better way of doing the deterrence job much safer. Not building one sub wont save that much money IMHO.

It will cost less than building 4 and I don’t imagine there is much difference between 3 and 4 in terms of reduction of unit cost. I guess is where the idea of a modified Astute comes in. Bad idea in my opinion, optimised for different tasks, but better than not having 4.

To be serious the deterrent needs to be continuous. Think of the furoure if someone finds out that the deterrent is at sea, when it hasn’t been for the last x months!?

Personal note from me is i want more subs not less:( gimme my SSGN:)

Just the original (SDR-98) level of 10 SSN, with TLAM capability would keep me happy.

In fact a lot about the SDR-98 made general sense (and that was the last time I thought that about the current Government)

I don’t think the V class is standard for nuclear carriers. The previous ones were the resolution class or R class. There is a bit of a mixed tradition of naming the classes in alphabetical order but this seems to go off sometimes.
Example are
O The Diesel/Electric Porpoise Class
P The Diesel/Electric Oberon Class
R The nuclear SSBN Resolution class
S Nuclear The Swiftsure class
T Nuclear Trafalgar class
U Diesel/electric Upholder class
V Nuclear SSBN Vanguard class
A Nuclear Astute Class

They miss out the awkward letters’ like Q X Y Z. There are some exceptions to this way of naming being inbetween the Resolution class and Swifture class we had the 3 boats of the nuclear Churchill class and in between The Oberon and Resolution class we had HMS Dreadnought and the 2 boats of the Valiant class but they were named HMS Valiant and HMS Warspite. I’m not sure of the reasons for this.
So the next logical step will be for the new SSBN’s to be called the B class and for the next SSN’s to be the C class. But who know’s if that will happen look what they did with the Carrier naming tradition.

Please be aware that this is all from depths of memory:

W-class was undergoing early design work in the late-80’s/early 90’s as the follow-on class to the Trafalgers. Binned in the early 90’s in favour of an upgraded design rather than an out and out new boat, eventually becoming Astute.

Does not explain why no X, Y or Z-classes though.