It employs roughly 1.3 Million. Im not saying it’s utter crap what im saying is that it has major problems. I think the concept is fine but the implementation is wrong, it could be far better run and do more with the same money and people could get what they needed. Governments have thrown too much money at the NHS without having an in depth look at the way the service is run and how it works.

The point in the NHS is to provide healthcare free at the point of delivery, IT SHOULD NOT BE ABOUT THE JOBS. Typing in caps is shouting btw.

That is maybe the single biggest flaw with people’s thinking is Jobs the NHS is a health service not a jobs creation project. That is the responsibility of the Social Security department. Same with the military and procurment decisions mainly about jobs the thinking is like “ahh who gives a **** if people die as long as we can keep some incompetent people rolling in it”

Whilst I agree with the sentiment (a large number of bureaucrats in the NHS and MOD need to be removed and not replaced to make savings), job creation and sustaining Britain’s manufacturing capabilities are important factors. I was in Barrow today and I can tell you that West Cumbria would have next to no jobs whatsoever outside of highly technical jobs in Sellafield if the sub plant at Barrow were to close. Same goes for places like Yeovil (A/W helos) and much of the decent manufacturing capability and the entire aviation industry left in the UK (especially areas like Filton).

Gentlemen, with all the good intensions in the world, it would be great, that every one would behave in a civilized manner. Food supplies would be available to everyone, oil would be available wealth would be equally distributed. Alas this is not the case, & human nature being what it is, never will be.
More and more nation states want atomic weaponry. Today we sit at the big table. Just. Do we sit back and become a little island nation of the edge of Europe and become less and less significant or do we, as a nation wish to still be a respected player in the game of life.
The last time we were conquered was 1066. Thanks mainly to the effort of the Dark blue service & the English Channel. If government, either Tory or Labour continue that could possibly change in our lifetime. today only the USA can properly power project. We can just about, same to France & possibly Russia.
With reference to several different threads etc the club may soon be joined by Brazil, China, India within the next 5-10 years. By 2040 possibly more to follow, more who may be more hostile.
The bearest minimum, I can hit you a lot harder than you can hit me, means SSBN, & i mean as a minimum 2 always at sea.
CVA’s, as I have stressed before at least 5, would prefer 7 each with a LPH. If some-one cut out rough 3 CVBG’s could zone in still in international waters and have the full potential to put 3Cdo brigade on the ground. Whatever DDG’s, SSGN’s & FFG’s are needed to protect the fleet the Treasury, must, as an act of national importance supply the finances.
Remember, at the end of the day, conflicts are only won by the ability to put more greens on the ground than the other guy & to keep them there.
As proved by the US during WW2 building ships, tanks, aircraft etc puts people in work increasing national welbeing hence better health & more wealth, pumping cash into NHS & DHSS drains the system, you get no return for you investment.

My god, i’m all for increasing the Royal Navy back to a decent strength but that is absurd. I’d suggest first of all setting a floor for the number of escorts in service (say 30-35), then if I’m feeling extravagant, expand to requiring 3 task forces on station at a time, by increasing our number of LPH’s or god forbid, CVF’s by 1. You see the difference, i’m going door to door talking about God, you’re on a soapbox screaming through a bullhorn for global Jihad.

You’d also have to take into account that the army and RAF, and certainly the FAA would need to increase massively to meet the needs of these threats you see. A military is no good without being able to fight on land. Soi the marines would need to increase to maybe 50-70,000 if we take America and scale down to our measly 7 CVBGs as a benchmark. The army would therefore need to be at around 700,000. And the RAF would need to be a bloated monstrosity with enough planes to bomb an entire continent with SDB’s in 4 hours. It’s sure as hell solve our unemployment problems and we could put our hard working and job stealing friends the Poles, into our factories to work.

LOL 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. then 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. 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!

Then there’s basing all these monstrosities and maintaining them (the vast majority of a weapon system lies in through life cost).

It’s possible, but we’d pretty much have to abolish either our social security or the NHS to do it. We’d have to take all that and pump it into our defence budgets, but it still wouldn’t cover all our needs. But hey, with that kind of firepower we could invade an oil rich country of our own.

My proposals, see the sensible bit above, would only require a little fat to be trimmed in other parts of the economy, or even just going after defence exports more pro-actively and returning the income to the defence budget.

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.

For one thing, they could probably reach our shores, but with no greater firepower than we could bring against their shores now. And how shocking is it really that India, with a population LARGER than USA, Canada, Oz & GB combined actually pumps out more doctorate students than us combined. That sounds to me about right, not a shocking, “oh crap they’re going to come and take over our tea plantations as revenge” type statement.

And until recently our economy was still increasing, the recession is a global bump in the road, don’t read into it too much.

And our neighbours now happen to be some of our closest allies, and combined, even in 40 years, I doubt they could take on the EU, which would likely be almost one country by then.

On another point, what is their motivation for attacking us? If they are coming for us but not our neighbours it implies we have a reason to be attacked? What is it pray tell? I know Shropshire is lovely, but not worth a round the world invasion. Wouldn’t our politicians would be far too spineless to annoy them if they were that powerful anyway?

Iran taking RN sailors prisoner is a pretty terrible example to use as an example for them not ‘fearing’ us, the republican guard have been playing chicken with US destroyers and cruisers several times over the course of the last couple of years, does that mean they don’t fear the US either?

If the Iranians don’t ‘fear’ us now how much less would they fear when we’ve ditched our nuclear deterrent and they have ballistic missiles that can reach our shores?

Number of destroyers was an example that doesn’t work.

You keep saying the world has moved on and I agree, since the end of the cold war the world doesn’t really seen to be that much of a safer place, in fact I’ll wager the UK armed forces have been involved in many more war zones than most would have expected in 91.

Excellent points Kev. The only difference between now and the Cold War is that the threat of immediate total annihilation has abated somewhat. The world has become a better place to any degree.

Well we’re not getting 12 DDGs now anyway and there’s no guarantee that we would of done if we had of ditched the need for Trident replacement anyway so I fail to see your point.

But we’ve still got to design another sub to do that roll which will cost a fair amount of wonga, plus we don’t get to share costs with the US, then of course there’s designing the delivery weapon unless we ask the US to modify Tomahawks which aren’t really that stealthy or fast…………….

Fortunately we wouldn’t need 12 unless we bought an extra carrier and a couple more LPH’s.

Personally I think 8 would have been the ideal amount for air defence unless the need arises to defend the UK from air attack. A ship in the channel is a better option than a SAMP-T in the UK tbh. Especially if tied into long range radars back home.

The only other scenario where we might need more I can think of would be if there was a high risk of one or more being sunk (no room for loss whatsoever) or if we could alter them for BMD against Iran when they finally get the range to hit us.

On another note, every other nuclear weapon system that we could deploy would cost a lot at this point. The cheapest system probably would be to continue with our current configuration. It is the only way we continue to share the burden with the US. An air launched system requires a new class of jets, a new missile and a dedicated tanker fleet. A SSGN requires a new class of sub and a new cruise missile. All other options are either entirely unsuitable for us and not even mentioned by stupid politicians or obviously even more expensive.

Ho! The British SSBN are a symbolic force, foremost. Britains entry card to the “club”. And then long nothing. And not even targeting population centers, if public sources are correct.

Not quite, we don’t pretarget population centres anymore i.e Moscow. In the 1980’s if the word had gone to an SSBN to launch they’d have pressed the button and the missiles would have tootled off to Moscow, which is fine until you get to now when Moscow may not be the target.

It’s not like we’d avoid population centres if it came to nuking someone with out ballistic missiles.

I hope to god our SSBNs to stay symbolic, otherwise it means we’ve fired the ******* things.

@j2222: You miss the big picture. The geopolitical ramifications of giving up our nuclear deterrent or SSBNs would be much more damaging than not getting 2 CV’s and some other ships. We lose our place of power and a place at many important negotiations, rogue nations like Iran wouldn’t even feel the need to deal with us in any way as they do now.

And the deterrent effect of the enemy knowing we can destroy them is lost if we switch only to cruise missiles because that certainty that the warheads will land and blow them to hell is gone. With cruise missiles the chance is there to shoo them down, so much of the fear is lost. Knowing you could be hit by a train unless you step out of the way and knowing you’re going to be hit by a train no matter what are two very different things.

The only way to regain that fear with a cruise missile would be to prove your willingness to use it by actually using it on someone. I’d rather have a nuclear weapon and never need to fire it than to have one that we actually have to fire for it to be of any use at all. You also need to take into account that a second strike is only nearly certain when an SSBN and SLBM are used. There is NO OTHER system that provides that near certainty. Planes can be shot down, SSNs tracked and sunk, land based system found on google and blown to hell etc.

Too expensive and when would you ever envisage firing a full salvo of an SSBNs Tridents? We (the UK) are now too poor! Even £50B over 25 years is still a 1/16 of our current defence budget per year … It was commonly thought that going Trident cost the Navy its real carriers last time around – what will be the cost this time?

As for NATO a force under NATO control – we do’t work properly as a force in Afghan the theater – how on earth would we ever reach a decision on a nuclear strike?

Are SLBM now vulnerable to S-300/400 systems and therefore not unstoppable as they once were?

I’d rather have 2 x CVs with a decent air wing and escort group of DDGs and a decently funded army. Go for a nuclear stealthy cruise missile and put it in a SSN if we want a big stick.

All IMHO of course 😉

The cost of our nuclear deterrent is tiny compared to a lot of the things this government buys each year. It’s odd you say that we lost our “real” carriers to Trident when there is a 14 year gap between cancellation of CVA-01 our last real carrier and Trident introduction. We aren’t too poor we just don’t invest in defence anymore.

No, our SLBMs aren’t stoppable with a S300/S400 system. it take something like the US GMD to stop them. Don’t be confused between ICBMs/SLBMs and TBMs.

Now a stealthy cruise missile is much more likely of being stopped, and will have a shorter range, fewer possibilities of employing countermeasures and no ability to MIRV or fire decoy warheads. It might be a big stick but it’s useless against a brick wall. Add to that you want them fired from SSNs and we don’t have a reliable chance of launching the things in a second strike, let alone of hitting a defended target when they’re launched.

If you’re talking about a cruise missile then surely we’re talking about a tactical warhead? Not much of a big stick?

Well our current warheads are around the 300-400 pound mark in weight, so a cruise missile could carry them, but as i mentioned above it’s still a pretty crappy stick.

AAW Ships like the Type-45 have very evolved and powerful sensors and the required computing power, can a surface skimming LO missile be effective in hiding itself up close with in the visual/radar horizon?

How many nations consider their AF’s for striking naval targets?

Plenty of nations use their air forces for striking naval targets. There are aircraft designed for it like the Nimrod and P8.

And a stealthy missile would probably have more chance against a Type 45 than a fast one. These ships were designed to fight supersonic missiles because that is the route most of our potential adversaries have gone down, where as our allies are going down the stealthy route so there is less need to protect against them until our potential adversaries go down that route.

Ships don’t have to be designed at home to be built at home. A man with a pen in another country can send designs to the Aussie shipbuilders and everyone is happy.