For the major Western nations the main problem is public support. If they are fighting a war thousands of miles away, the nation will largely not care, so to see that billions of dollars worth of equipment and hundreds of soldiers are dying for something that most people wouldn’t consider a threat to their nation, will anger tham and turn support against them.

Of course if the enemy was attacking the same Western nation on a daily basis and causing casualties, that support would be a lot stronger and the money and body count becomes more politically acceptable. You throw enough money at the military and they can produce what they need pretty damn quickly, it’s just that the money is rarely there to do that nowadays.

If I were to stage a coup, would you be my defence minister? 😛

Thats firmly in the realm of “nice to have”. The RN and RAF currently manage with Harriers who cant do that, so they can cope without it. Of course it’d be nice and increase possibilities but I doubt there is money free for it.

Do you think as a result of the SDSR we will see the C3 design sooner rather than later to fulfil the anti-piracy mission?

Also does anyone think that HMS Ocean will actually be replaced or do you think that they “stories” that the RN have agreed to use Prince of Wales as a commando carrier to replace Ocean are true?

I doubt we’ll see C3 soon, most of the ships it is supposed to replace a fair bit of life left in them yet. Yes they’d be more useful than the current vessels but not enough to warrant the costs of building C3 over a decade early.

And PoW was ALWAYS intended to fulfil the Commando carrier role, when Ocean was in refit. As always the MSM latched on and got it wrong. We won’t know whether that has changed in some way until after the SDR. My bet would be that Ocean does get replaced, but Ocean’s life will have to be extended first, so PoW won’t have to become a permanent Commando Carrier.

@Pj: Can ALL the MCM functions be air based though? What about the USVs etc that they are using/beginning to use? Even if you manage to rig it up to a helo, how do you recover it? They aren’t very fast and can’t travel far, so having to pilot them back to the large aviation ship would be infeasible.

I still can’t understand which lame brain could call a missile after a slug though!

Ah see the MOD is actually quite clever, they just apply their forethought in the wrong places. Because they started with the crap names in the Sea-(insert water based creature here) missile names, they can now move on to the cool ones like Sea Dart and even better, Sea Viper. All of this is so the Rn can get a PR boost at precisely the right moment – all planned 50 years in advance.

Thanks Fedaykin, I had already taken the threat from the Army into account, and like yourself had already seen the withdrawal from the Stan as putting an eventual end to their arguments. Only the press and some loony fringe elements appear to have taken them seriously anyway. That and Liam Fox’s apparent pro Navy and pro-Carrier stance gives me a degree of reassurance.

The RAF seems to suffer from a strange malady- whilst they are maintaining and flying aircraft (getting their hands dirty) they seem to be well adjusted and sensible with respect for the need for Naval Aviation and happy for it to remain primarily Dark Blue. Once they get promoted to flying a desk, all sorts of strange and unworkable ideas appear to fill their heads such as taking over ownership of ALL British Military aircraft be they FJ, AT or RW. This condition is known as ‘Hermann Goerring-itis’, also known as ‘Everything that flies belongs to me!’ Syndrome, and like it’s namesake can only end badly for all infected…

I have a possible diagnosis for this strange disease. I believe the cause may be that the moment you begin to fly a desk war poses no real danger to you and as such your primary concern is no longer about how to fight it most effectively, meeting performance targets and budgets are.

@Lordjim: Just because the Rn use carriers in a different way to the Americans (with many times more carriers and Amphibs to support them), doesn’t mean they are using them in the wrong way. They are just maximising their resources. The French are a more equal example, and they don’t use CDG as a full CBG do they? And last time I checked, the Rn had more experience operating carriers and using them in wars than the French, so why should the French be doing it the right way and the UK the wrong way?