ChoxThanks guys – I should have said that I was kinda wondering if anyone had a photo not taken at Greenham Common – that viewpoint’s been rather overdone! Thing is, thinking back, I can’t recall ever having seen an official photos of the aircraft although you’d think someone must have taken some?!
Chox‘Forever Farnborough’
Ooh good thinking Page, I’ve got that book hidden away somewhere!
Thanks for the mention of the Flight article Thunderbird – interesting reading!
ChoxRAF Museum is a complete joke. The last research enquiry I sent to them wasn’t even acknowledged. Their web site is rubbish (seems to be aimed at kids), their photographic collection now seems to comprise of a few selected images that they want to re-sell at ridiculously over-inflated rices. The actual museum has turned into a kid’s playground. Complete rubbish – and I’m not the only person who thinks so.
ChoxI’m glad I ventured over to Finningley to see her last landing – might be the last for some time. Well worth the walk down the railway track to the approach lights – just like stepping back forty years!
ChoxOh well, another thread ruined… thanks to the guys who actually said something interesting.:)
ChoxBut as you can’t be bothered to back your argument I am happy to accept your admission that you have lost it
I suggest that if you propose to use terms such as “admission” and “lost” then perhaps you’re in the wrong place. This is a forum not a school yard. If you seriously think that my comments about political support are wrong, then by all means feel free to continue thinking that. I really don’t mind. 😉
ChoxThree PMs (Blair, Brown, cameron) supported
Several Ministers for defence (Hutton onwards) supported it
Defence Select committe support it
Er… yes, and pretty-much nobody else. If you want evidence to support my view, I can only suggest you go and look for it. I don’t have the time or inclination to do it myself, simply to win an argument on a forum. If you think what I’m saying isn’t true that’s fine.
It’s also about how many carriers, of what size.
I agree entirely! Although that article doesn’t take into account the wider political issues which are fundamental to the question of whether to get out of the business completely.
ChoxNot a case of “talking down” anyone – more a case of what I said in the previous post I suspect. Enthusiasts (and I am one of course) are inevitably tempted to look at the world in a fairly insular way.
ChoxKev99 I think that’s as far as we can go really. I don’t see any point in arguing with you any further.
mrmalaya I can see why you might reach this conclusion but I don’t think that’s the real reason. It may indeed be a generational thing however, in that an older generation has a better grasp of history and a wider view of mundane reality. I suppose a younger generation always has the temptation to look at these subjects with enthusiasm which is far beyond practicality. I suspect that in the case of this subject, a lot of people have simply digested far too much “magazine-speak” from writers and pundits who are far too concerned with the mechanics and the perceived thrill of carrier aviation, and have no regard for the realities of foreign policy, national politics, military politics and – most importantly – national debt. Granted, they’re grim subjects which are far less exciting than carriers, but unfortunately they are the realities of life.
It’s easy to convince one’s self that carriers are a vital asset and that we can somehow continue acting as if we were living in the 1950s. But of course we are now and can not. We have to accept reality and understand that if we are to pursue the carrier project, we’re going to get very little at a massive cost. Hardly surprising that so many people think it’s utter folly.
ChoxThe story is also in my Lightning book, published a year or so back (Ian Allan Publications).
ChoxRound and round we go. Semanitics aside:-
History has shown a need repeatedly
No it hasn’t. You keep clinging to absurdities like Honduras… come on, get real.
assertion is SO WRONG
Using caps doesn’t help one bit. Just makes you sound silly. It’s not an argument.
All I see is your arguments in tatters.
All you see is what you want to see. All of the political comment doesn’t bear scrutiny. The reality is (as you well know) that only some of the cabinet and a few others, support the carriers. The vast majority (and I do mean nearly everyone) do not. We all know that.
Do you still want to project your power far beyond your own border..??
Exactly, that’s the choice, really. I think most people have accepted that even if we’d like to, we simply can’t afford to and – more importantly – there is no need to in any case. The problem seems to be that some aeroplane enthusiasts are a little too obsessed with their enthusiasm for air power and the F-35, etc., to either understand or accept the absurdity of the carrier proposition.
ChoxSeem to be going round in circles here. The majority of MPs think the carriers are an absurd waste of money. That’s not just a wild assertion – you only have to listen. Failing that, one can always ask. The only major support comes from the inner circles of the Government and even some of this is half-hearted (it’s pretty obvious that the LibDems would not support the programme if they were not in a coalition, and it goes without saying that Labour would kill it off at a stroke, even if they might claim otherwise from the convenient position of Opposition). This is understandable to some degree, as the Government takes a wider view of foreign policy issues and our position on the proverbial world stage. It doesn’t mean that their view is right though. Even Portillo commented recently that he was astonished that the programme is still going ahead and still believed it was unsustainable. If even he thinks it’s ridiculous…
The MoD give mixed messages. Yes, they want the carrier but as I’ve said, they’ve admitted that carrier power hasn’t been necessary for a long time. They also accept that they are willing to survive without carrier power until it can be reinstated many years in the future. This is an absurd position, and one which is undoubtedly driven by the Navy, just as it was last time. The basis of their position is that it hasn’t been needed, will not be needed for a long time, but that it might be needed at some pre-determined point in the future. It’s really not a plausible argument. Naturally, it might be needed – nothing is impossible, but how far should a nation with our resources go, to pursue a “what if” scenario? If we are to maintain defence capability on this basis, there are countless “what if” scenarios which could be drawn-up almost at will, each of which might require a completely different solution. Surely, the only sound method of establishing what is a more likely future, is to look at our past? If we do, then we see that carriers have been redundant for decades. Okay, we can throw-in the Falklands and other events but you have to ask if any of these (apart from the Falklands “one off”) have been worth the sheer cost of carrier power?
Yes, carrier power is a useful asset but only at a crippling cost. Likewise, carrier power is only effective if it is of some substance. It is questionable whether one operational carrier with six (maybe a dozen eventually) aircraft constitutes “power” at all. Surely, you have to ask whether it really is worth the huge, staggering cost?
The point is, Britain can demonstrably survive without carrier power. I accept that it can therefore be argued that we could survive with virtually no military capacity at all on this basis, but this is a matter of semantics. To suggest that if we don’t need carriers then we don’t need anything is a valid argument but not necessarily the right one.
We cannot act in isolation any longer. We don’t have the ability. We can only act as a partner in wider alliances. A carrier might be an impressive “showcase” asset for our partners but by any standards it is a small and unnecessary one. We can provide other assets which are far more valuable, especially if the phenomenal cost of the carrier programme doesn’t drain our resources. Ultimately it’s a question of choice. We can’t have everything. We cannot afford to devote such a huge amount of spending to one programme which ultimately results in a ridiculously small capability which may well be used, but which will never be vital.
The whole issue is comical in its absurdity. A truly staggering amount of money for a near-bankrupt country, a MoD which is already hugely over-spent, and which is already struggling to maintain the most austere of defence capabilities… and yet some are seriously suggesting that we pursue this programme?
ChoxI honestly don’t even know what point he’s trying to make there. The thread is about the carrier saga so I don’t quite understand the point of asking why it isn’t about something else.
ChoxNo, but any free publicity is better than nothing.
You’d think so, but the Beeb film didn’t publicise the project at all. It said nothing. Typical television in fact. Insubstantial fluff and not even good fluff in this case!
Choxyou point out that we’re unlikely to be attacked by anyone (as proven by history, apparently…) so could actually, safely, pare our defences down even further – therefore our defence hasn’t been compromised (by CVF or anything else), no?
Er, no. That’s a fairly poor attempt at juggling semantics, not a coherent argument. Incidentally, I didn’t say that we could safely pare our defences any further. I said that any commentator could reasonably argue that point. Clearly, we cannot (or at least should not) maintain global power when we cannot maintain purely national capabilities. But this is precisely what we are doing, and when the global “power” is nothing more than tokenism, it is clearly a political act rather than one based on sound military thinking. I think it’s clear to anyone that the carrier is about political gesturing more than anything else. It suits the Navy of course as (once again) it enables them to get back into the air power business. History repeating itself in fact.
Honduras? Are you serious? Ten billion and more to insure ourselves against something like that?
The main problem with your meta-argument about the UK’s place in the world, re our military strength, is that it seems far too fragile a position to be in. We hope that nobody attacks us, or our widespread dependent territories and allies, or our absolutely – strategically! – essential trade routes all over the globe (the down-side of being an island nation that was once an empire). Further, since practically every war represents (almost by definition) a breakdown in diplomacy, it isn’t quite intellectually fair to dismiss as evidence for carriers’ utility any wars that are (in your perception) a result of diplomatic failure (in addition to dismissing ‘wars of choice’…).
But your point is what? That a “fragile” future somehow requires us to spend money we haven’t got on one carrier? Surely, this only serves to make our position even more fragile because we’ll be bankrupt too?
I understand your point but it is precisely the kind of thinking that you accuse me of. It’s outdated. We don’t have the capacity to embark on global projection crusades. It might be a bitter pill to swallow for some but the alternative is even more absurd. To strut on the world stage with a carrier is fine when one can afford to do it, but when our defence capability is being diminished to almost comical levels, none of the players on the world stage will be impressed for a minute. The remaining British politicians who imagine that they will be are simply fooling themselves.
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