I understood that the Irish were loking at a Meko proposal for a ship, I wouldn’t call it an amphibious ship, more a cheap militarised transport with landing craft.

Here’s some images

Unicorn

I cannot speak for the Japanese, but at least one other nation’s SSKs did recon of Chinese territorial waters in years past.

Unicorn

Well, that was one of the RAN’s supposed not-negotiables, before G&C’s incompetant sales and marketing people let Navantia wander off with a contract that should have gone to G&C.

The RAN is still pushing for two hangars, but I don’t think thats really possible without a wider hull, which suggest an expensive redesign, costing much $ and invalidating the reasons the F100 was chosen.

Unicorn

I would however point out that in the Falklands there were a pile of other classes of vessel available to do the shore bombardment ops, Leanders, Type 21’s, Countys, even the Whitby’s, thus sending a Type 42 was not necessary.

In a future scenario you will have type 45s and Type 23s (and the as yet mythical type 22 replacement).

Thus it may be that, based on threat levels and types, and on the disposition of the task force, that the choice may be limited to one or other of the Type 45’s available.

In an op involving a multi-national force, there might well be other ships in the force who can undertake the action, with a Type 45 providing air defence for that force. However if the other ships don’t have weapons that can reach far enough inland (Canadian’s with 57mm and others with 76mm guns for example), then it may be the Darings 4.5′ that gets the nod.

Aternatively, their may be other ships that have weapons with the range but that are either not capable of the operation, or not trusted to do the job right.

For example a RN Marine force in action in a UN operation somewhere in Africa gets pinned down at night in bad weather (no air supprt available) and calls for NGS. The choices may be a Nigerian Meko 360 with a gun with enough range but no training in NGS, an Australian Adelaide class, trained for it but the 76mm doesn’t reach far enough inland to do the job, or the Type 45’s 4.5 inch.

I am sure that we could argue back and forward, but in the end, one goes to war with what one has and wins or loses with what one has to hand.

I look at the RN of today, and shake my head in sorrow at what politicians have wrought on one of the world’s great navies.

The RAN was once a sister service to the RN, but grew apart during WW2 and particularly after the UK’s retreat from ‘East of Suez’. Now it owes more to the USN than the RN in many areas but the RAN-RN relationship still remains close.

It is therefore tragic to see that the RAN is aiming at a fleet of three AWD, three FFG (eventually to be replaced by six of a new class) and 8 Anzacs, by 2015 they will have a surface fleet of 14 frigates and destroyers, with a balaced force of amphious, submarine, patrol and mine warfare forces.

In the same period the RN will be struggling to maintain 25 frigates and destroyers, still building the CVs and watching as their SSN force attrits down to 7 hulls, their mine warfare capability erodes, with only the amphibius forces up to speed.

All this on a very much greater population, industrial and exconomic base. It as if the RAN has learned the lessons from the RN that the RN’s masters will not hear.

In many respects, the ‘peace dividend’ so beloved of politicians seems to have hit the RN almost as hard as the Russian Navy, the only difference is that the British, innately a tidier people, don’t leave the hulks to rot and sink at their moorings in plain view.

I mourn for the RN, as it slowly descends into the a state of irrelevancy.

The epitaph could be “Here lies the RN, dead from neglect and the wilful refusal of the United Kingdom’s politicians and people to learn from their own nation’s history”.

Unicorn

A few small points if I may.

In wartime ships get used in ways that were not really their intended role.

Thus if a request comes in for shore bombardment and a T45 is the only available vessel, then the T45 gets to do shore bombardment. The most recent example’s of shore bombardment I am aware of are a RAN Anzac class during Op Iraqi Freedom (at the request of Royal Marines) and possibly Israeli ships lobbing 76mm bricks into Lebanon.

The alternative is saying no to a request, perhaps having your troops killed because you were not prepared to risk a T45 for the job and ‘go in harms way’ and dealing with the public, political and service approbrium of having let people die while you ‘covered your ****’.

The improvement in crewing arrangements are a result of having to compete for highly skilled people in a very tight employment marketplace. Sure, you can put them into the same conditions as their grandfathers served in on Leanders, but good luck on retaining them past their first service period. Old salts complain about ‘feather bedding’ on new ships but forget that the conditions they served on were better than was available 20 or 30 years before.

I personally don’t like the looks of the T45, but understand that they represent the slim hope for the future of the RN, so I wish them well.

Unicorn

Next will be some older drawings of modern MCMVs if you don´t mind.

Mind?

Not in the slightest!

Unicorn

Short of an invasion force there how can PRC hold territory? Chinese docterine have never centered around such offensive tactics and in my opinion will not head this direction in the near future.

Tell that to Taiwan.

A carrier could be very useful for providing a threat to Taiwanese assets from a completely different threat axis than currently expected.

Not to mention making it more difficult for the US to intervene if China attempts to forcibly reunite the two countries.

Unicorn

Sorry Swerve, but your arguments look suspiciously like attempting to justify a poor decision (the Gorshkov purchase) after the fact.

There are & were a number of alternatives, however it appears that the Indian Navy, the Indian Defence bureacracy and the Indian politicians were suduced by the vision of a low cost, low risk option from Russia, and failed to undertake a proper SWOT analysis of what was being promised or what else was available.

I hasten to add that is not an issue uniquely the province of India, many other militaries have fallen into exactly the same trap.

Unicorn