Upholder

Fedaykin,

I think you are being a bit hard on the Upholder Class, the SSN like hull form works well and early problems with all new weapon systems take time to sort out. The Canadians have a good boat there for next to nothing (okay we got to use the ranges at Goose Bay for five years in exchange).
Having their own subs off each coast stops the US Navy from driving their SSNs through Canadian waters without telling them too. This fact went down well with some Canadian politicians.
The reactivation process was a bit of a screw-up but that wasn’t the boats design or build quality’s fault. Fitting old kit from their Oberons into the new Upholders always seemed a bit of a backward step to me.

If we had got the seven Upholder hulls planned the UK might just have stayed in the Diesel Submarine construction business. There is a world market out there for good subs – once again the UK has abandoned a good idea and years of construction experience. A fleet of seven Upholders perhaps updated with AIP units would have been a good accompaniment to the seven Astute class boats.

I thought the Navy offered the Upholder Class up as the only option they could offer in the “Front Line First” Defence Review (i.e. cuts) of 1992. They believed that as they were so new into service that the Government would realise the folly of scrapping them and would look to the Army and RAF for further cuts. The government of course realised that by scrapping an entire type of vessel would realise even greater than anticipated savings as the entire support and training structure for diesel submarines could also be cut.

John K:

You raise a valid point in mentioning that we no longer face a (direct) threat from a major state power. You are also correct to point out our past 21 years of adventurism mostly East of Suez. I too am alarmed by the cuts to our conventional forces, I hope that if the planned level is to be sustained then we as a nation should refrain from the type of costly open-ended conflict we have recently been involved in.

However it is the future threats that we need to guard against and plan for.

By having an SSBN based rapid reliable accurate deterrent in our arsenal we can face the uncertain future with some degree of ‘insurance’.
Putting our own, bought and paid for missiles in a new boat seems the only way to do that.

NATO issues

Getting back to the Danish Forces accidental release of a critical report…

I am sure that there are many other critical reports from other NATO nations. But as they are classified they will have to remain a subject of speculation.

NATO as a mutual defence organisation worked well when there was a common aim. However as an overarching military defence agency it is inevitable that differing national foreign policies will clash. This leads to a natural protection of information gained by individual nations.
I worked in the HQ in Italy during the Bosnian mess. The Germans and the Italians kept stuff from the French (who shared some stuff with the UK but not the US). The US and the UK shared some (but not all) with each other and very little with the others. I had hoped thing would be better by now but it appears not.

There is a perception in some NATO countries that the US use NATO as a way of implementing their own aims by forming ‘coalitions’ of NATO partners in conflict zones far removed from the North Atlantic and outwith the mutual assistance element that NATO was originally all about.

The Libya Mission report specifically criticises NATO (without the US) for being unable to provide reliable intelligence on targets or provide accurate Battle Damage Assessments. There may well have been enough European reconnaissance assets and analysts in the area but the reluctance (or inability) to share their nationally acquired information may have been a problem.

I found these somewhere – not recent but …

White Elephant

Dazza

The Sentinel R Mark 1 is not a ‘stand alone’ system, it was always planned to simply locate ‘possible targets’ its value is only realised when there are other (proper) reconnaissance assets available to confirm or deny those ‘possibles’. Post Afghanistan it has no real role in the defence of the UK. It will once again be an aircraft looking for a role. Shame we didn’t get it in the late 70’s when we needed it.

And I will say it again, the single target by the late 60’s was the leader of the Soviet Union. A whole fleet of V-bombers to go after just one man makes no sense.

HMS Badgered, Berated, Betrayed & Bizarre?

RN SSBN Names

I like Warspite, how about Valiant?

(Don’t like the idea of Skybolt for a name though)

What names would we like to see the new SSBNs called – if we get them?

In an attempt to get back on topic …