The Docleander’s. keep as GP’s but modernize as follows, 4.5 DP guns, 4 Ship Martel SSM’s as in Van Speijk, 6 cell SeaWolf on hanger roof, Lynx HAS, torpedo tubes & 20mm guns.
Devonshires build further 4 and modernise the other 8 as follows; 4.5inch @ A, multi luncher for Ikara, Sea Dart & Ship Martel @ B & Y, Sea King or 2 Lynx HAS 20mm’s and torpedo tubes. COGAG power plant reduce crew & possiblt stay in service until 2000 at least phasing out hopefully with arrivals of Darings.
The Doclike this. vessel names, would Duke of York not be more probable that Empress of India?
as thread about not canceling how about the fleet SSM being Ship Martel.
Aircraft 2 squadrons of Vickers 581.s from start- mid ’73?
Escort vessels, wasn’t there an Anglo-Oz destroyer featured recently, how about these?
The DocMany thanks Obi Wan & 90in FIRST.
another query. If the 3 big carriers went ahead (informed opinions please) would the air group most likely be Phantoms & Buccaneers continuing up to date or a possibility of Sea Jaguars/ Sea Harriers or other types?
The DocA couple of points/questions.
Had Victorious been recomissioned & HM Government forcing scrapping of the ‘big carriers’ would it not have been better to keep Vicky & Hermes as they would’ve been cheeper to run. There is a photo in Richard Johnstone-Brydens book ‘HMS Ark Royal IV’ of the P1127 landing dated Feb 7 but no year, so presume it was before her feb’67 refit. Eagle trialed Phantoms in ’68 & Harrier GR1’s March 70. Ark flew Phantoms 70+ & trialed Harrier GR1’s May’71 & GR3’s October ’75. Could Navy not try & go for 12 SHARS + 14 GR1’s as a replacement for Sea Vixens & buccaneers plus AEW, HAS etc? SHAR development sped up due to need? Could Victorious & Hermes have been projected to operate such an air group? Then designing a purpose built bird farms of 30- 35,000 tons sort of a cross between Victorious & Invincible, for commisioning 1980+?
The Docjust listening to Mark Fitzpatrick of IISS on BBC website. Says we have already reduced nuclear capability by 75% to 160 warheads, & reducing from 4 to 3 boats will save £5bn. This 75% reduction hasn’t been met with a major increase in conventional weapons. Just face saving for votes whilst exposing the weakness of the nation.
The DocSSBN is an excellent deterrent, and is needed especially and independent ones like UK & France.
For a scenario UK & USA fall out. We nuke the yanks. They nuke us back. France falls under a radioactive blanket to they nuke the yanks, who then nuke France. The cloud the goes over europe to Russia who the nuke the Yanks, who then fire back at the Russians. China then finishes off the russians & then india join it along with Pakistan etc & everybody dies. Change the order of battle if you like but still every one dies. Result no-one is prepared to start it but every-one is ready to finish it. Deterrent works.
I love carriers great for getting your point abroad, but if you’re percy on the ground, a squadron of carpet bombing B52, B1’s or Vulcans would be greatly appricated, provide they hit the right target.
The Docbeen scratching the surface a little, perhaps some of you can go deeper, but whilst we can all blame the other services, or the once every 4 year baby kissers I noticed something.
When they realized that the V bombers couldn’t drop atomic bombs on the good old USSR, they went for Blue Streak and over £300m then was spent to get it up and running. When it was they then spent £98M on polaris. £300m wasted. When all the polaris boats were it service, they then realised polaris was crap & couldn’t penetrate the soviet defences so they spent another £1B to make it work by 1987 all the R boats were up and running then £B’s more spent on Trident.
The R boats averaged 26 yrs in service and it look like the V boats will do the same. That 8 boats for approx 50 yrs, & i’m mad for suggesting having 7 boats rotated over the same period.
Back in the 50’s we had scientists, engineers etc developing systems like Blue Steel, Blue Streak, the Rotodyne, TSR, vickers 583 & 583v all to be shelved & costing £B’s why? for an extra £5m the Eagle could’ve served along side the Ark keeping full deck carriers operational to the mid-late 80’s etc. What if we had put Blue Streak into the subs, a completely designed, developed & operated nuclear deterrent, proper rotation we would be talking now about the R boats replacement.
The DocBoat names.
Dreadnought “the name of the epoch-making battleship (which was commissioned on the same day as the submarine was launched) was chosen deliberately to emphasize the power and importance of the Nuclear Attack Submarine in modern naval warfare.” Weapons & warfare BPC Publishing 1971. Resolution, Renown, Revenge & Repulse were also capital ships. Warspite, Conqueror, Valiant, Superb, Swiftsure, Vanguard & others were also capital ships.
Following this and into the ‘B’s could they possibly be from, Barfleur, Britannia, Bulwark, Barham, Beatty, Bellerophone or Benbow?
The DocPoint taken, however there is a difference of opinion regarding history.
Now imagine this taking part in “ye olde ale house”. two differences of opinion, both stubbornly refusing to yield. a few beers later & they are outside to sort the matter out. Take in further, you people invade us. no we didn’t. we’re only claiming what’s rightfully ours. Ok lets go to war.
The whole idea in the art of war, is to defeat your enemy. This can only be achieved in one of two ways. Convince him your army is better than his & to avoid severe hardship for his people give up or way 2 fight. The whole idea of way 2 is to lure your enemy into the killing ground & annihilate him. The best weapon delivery system to achieve this is an SSBN. now the fact GB has SSBN’s means we are perfectly capable of carrying out route 2. Because we can do route 2 means you had better taking option 1. Therefore SSBN capability ensures route 1.
” Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. The best thing is to take the enemy’s country intact.”- The Art of War.
Of topic.
Argus, Ark Royal Courageous, Eagle, Furious, Glorious & Hermes. Pre WW2 RN carriers.
Albion, Ark Royal, Bulwark, Centaur, Eagle, Hermes & Victorious, post WW2 RN carriers.
Please note 7 flat tops pre & post war. Replace like for like. As to affordable. 1980 Britain couldn’t afford 4 RM commandoes. 41 went. Others were to follow. Britain couldn’t afford 3 carriers. Hermes to India, Invincible to Australia leaving us with 2. Britain didn’t need amphibious capability. LPD’s to go. enter Argentina.
Plan 1 use RAF stragetic capability, fly para to Falklands & keep out the Argies. Oh dear the RAF lied. They couldn’t fly the paras south. No refueling probes on Hercules.
Plan 2 Maggie then asked the RN to prepare a fleet to retake the Islands.
The Docappologies for returning late, but as advised by Swerve was looking up history, re his foreign invasion in 1688.
A little history. Orange was a province is southern France. The house of Orange married into the house of Nassau. (Germany & Holland)
With the religious wars in raging in Europe The house of Orange was converted from Roman Catholic (see council of trent for beliefs) to the Lutherin (see Augsberg confession) The result was William ( King Williams grandfather was murdered in his bed by 2 Jeusuits in 1584.
William 111 marriedthe daughter of James Duke of Yorks daughter & 2nd heir to the throne of England, Mary a C of E ( see 39 articles). A plot to murder the Lord Chancelor by Talbot was thwarted & upon Charles 11 death James came to the throne, Talbot an RC became his chief advisor, James was a bit of a lad, he liked women, beer & war 7 was converted to be an Rc by talbot.
Back to 1664 a regiment of soldiers was raised whose colonel was the Duke of York. in the Anglo Dutch wars they captured the city of New amsterdam & called it New York after their colonel who later became King James. This regiment is pre-dated by the Grenadier Guards, so is pre William.
Parliament which was protestant became alarmed a feeler was sent out to william & Mary.
Mary’s mother died in 1671 & james remarried an Rc in 1673 & when she gave birth to James junior in 1688 a formal invitation was sent by the 7 to bring William & Mary over.
When William landed England was in a state of near civil war 68,000 english troops immediately sided with him including James former right hand man, Rooke.
Quote Winston Churchill ” by one spontaneous, tremendous convulsion the English nation repudiated James”.
No further input will be given by the doc on this episode you can make your own mind up as to William invaded or was invited.
AS to pre William regiments see above Grenadier Guards, 4th Dragoon Guards 1685,18th foot The Royal Irish Regiment 1983, if you wish to count the Admiral Regiment 1664, (Royal Marines) & I believe there also was at least a Scottish Regiment the pre dates William.
The Docwhat reason is there to attack anyone?
Why did Germany invade Poland there wasn’t any need?
Why did Japan invade China?
Why did Vietnam invade Cambodia?
Why did Iraq go to war with Iran?
Why, why would anyone want to go to war with Britain?
The answer my friend is written in the wind.
5,000 bootnecks are enough.
either we stay big players or we pull out, become the 51st state in the union, or we get a few patrol boats to keep the drug smugglers out & a few helicopters to monitor the commuter traffic & pray to God that we don’t have anything that anyone else wants.
The Doc[QUOTE=Sintra;1456471][QUOTE=The Doc;1456462]
Willian of Orange was invited by a letter wrote and signed by seven persons…
In the Twenty Century that would be called a “Fifth Collum”.
The Parliament made William of Orange king of England after a ferocious debate and under the “friendly” presence of fifteen thousand Dutch Troops in London (and with a civil war betwen the Tories and the Whigs looming).
William landed at Torquay, please note, beacons were lit the lenght and breadth of the land to his arrival as liberator not invader. Crowds of civilians gathered at Torquay to welcome him & his men. tens of thousands cheered him on his way to London. Check the history of the regiments in the British army most were Williams men.
To me this dosn’t sound like a few fifth columnists but the jubilation of a nation.
If William did Invade why did he not call London “New Amsterdam”
The DocLOL a few extra billion lets do the maths! ok so you want 7 100,000 ton carriers. wiki the fountain of all knowledge states that the Gerald ford class will cost 9 billion each not including the research and development costs! so seven of those is 63 Billion dollars which is about 38 billion I think.
Lets try the maths bit again.
$9billion = £6billion. It takes about 7 years from keel laying to commisioning = < £1 billion per annumthen say if we make more ocean’s because there cheap today’s prices I think it was agreed on another thread of about 300m so 7 of those is another 2.1 billion and these only have a lifespan of 20 years.
Carriers are now designed with a life span of 50 years hence the size for upgrades of equipment & not 20.
7 carriers would equate to only 2 at sea, using £’s. 2 in light reserve/ crew training ok using a few bob. @ in deep reserve maned by RNVR units costing little & 1 in refit maintenance only. This would only actually add £400M wages (RN FAA RM & service gangs) £140M ships fuel, 7 £100-150M aircraft fuel depending on sorties flown, totaling £640M -£690M per annum.
so to match the carriers you would need 14 of these produced plus the facilities to build such large number I would say a conservative guestimate of 5 billion pounds. which takes us to 43 billion pounds, not to mention the escorts, supply ships, construction facilities and massive increase in navy personnel required to man such a up taking. Although I am probably way off with the number but I have confessed many time imp no expert! I think even this prove how it would be impossible and any gov that tried it should and would be lynched! It would be interesting to have somebody who knows the numbers price this up though!
When comparing cost of other nations defense cost Sweden or Israel their cost per effectiveness is by far, superior to ours. The cost of naval CVBG’s is nowhere near the cost of running a similar sized base in Germany. Simply put the majority of military spending is wasted on unnecessary items total unrelated to the defensive needs of country. As a nation we can afford to build SSBN’s, SSGN’s & CVBG’s if proper housekeeping & common practices were implimented in all 3 services.
The Doc[QUOTE=swerve;1456405]What about 1688? When a foreign army, led by a foreign head of state, lands in England, marches across the country winning battles & puts that foreign head of state on the throne of England, it’s pretty hard to call it anything other than a conquest. There was a battle not a mile from here, on 9th December 1688. Regular Dutch army troops on the winning side, British army (albeit Irishmen) the losers.
William of Orange was invited over by Parliament and the people he did not invade.
Projecting power is one thing. Projecting enough of it to our shores to present a serious threat to us is something rather different. Do you seriously think that Brazil, China or India will be able to threaten us directly in the near future? And if they can, how do you think our neighbours will react?
Both China & India militarily & economically are on the rise, we are on the decline in both. India as more people educate to doctorate level than the USA, Canada, Oz & GB combined. GB is on the decline, 70 years ago number uno and in 20-25 yrs from now for China & India to power project here would be a distinct possibility. We on the other hand may have turned ourselves into a bankrupt ‘North Korea’ without any military spending.
How would our neighbours react? Well since we have fought with every one of them since time began, they, probably laugh their socks of.
The Docwait? did you just say you wanted 7 Large fleet carriers ala CVF, i take it that is what CVA means? and 7 LPH? for the royal navy? i didnt realise we where planning a war with america!
Not yet, with rotation that is what is require to ensure a victory for 3Cdo on the ground, 1 forward deployed anywhere/somewhere/ showing the flag, 1 for ASW in gap, 2 in light reserve/stand-by 2 in deep reserve & 1 in refit. Less wear & tear on both vessels & crew.
CVF to small a real carrier should be at least 100,000 tonnes. A hull of this size could do away with the need for a n LPH. 2x 12 CATBAR 2×12 STOVL 1×9 ASW 1x 9 air assault + others & the usual 1,000 bootnecks. If going to power project then do it properly, & keep all options open.
Better to spend a few extra billion & not have to fight. Than to fight and spend billions trying to find a way out.
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