Stop being so pessimistic. The British Armed Forces still have three times the budget of say, the Australian Defense Force (which has 4 front line fighter squadrons plus two OCU’s).

they never should have stopped building Type 23’s should have been continual.

They should have continued T23 construction until the first T45 began construction and the T45’s should have been a multi-year contract for 12 right from the start. 😛

MisterQ and StevoJH, You cannot stimulate shipbuilding in that way by building commercial ships as EU competition rules prohibit it. Building Naval Vessels is fine as long as they are strictly naval and i think we all know that it would never happen as there is not enough common sense left in the UK voters and the people they vote for to realise that we are an island nation. Hell i would love to stimulate shipbuilding (I live by the Clyde) by rebuilding the Royal Navy into something that would resemble it’s former self but the people would just not be behind it.

Commercial shipbuilding as far as i know has to be done in a fair manner e.g. all EU shipyards can bid on work and direct subsidies would not be allowed and lets face it UK shipyards are pretty expensive. Even ignoring this what would the ship’s be for? are you planning on setting up some sort of semi-state owned shipping line and providing them with massive subsidies to buy UK built ships. Or do you plan simply to offer existing companies money to order UK built ships? The money poured into the idea would need to be pretty big as South Korean shipyards beat us on price and annihilate us on efficiency and sticking to contract terms.

In my view the most realistic thing is to build the UK back to being a Tier 1 naval power while helping a heavy industry. Even if we maintained the RN at 1980’s strength (60 odd escorts) that would still be a healthy workload for exisiting yards and should keep them occupied, it may even need an expansion of capacity. That in my view is pretty realistic from a financial point of view and would have other plusses, such as having a proper naval force, employing thousands of skilled people and supporting the wider economy such as steel mills etc. Also i’m a Eurosceptic so i would rather we were not fully part of the EU and if we were not we could have much more freedom, we could subsidise industries if we wanted.

Yes you can, start a government owned shipping company, for arguments sake lets call it the “Royal Fleet Auxiliary Auxiliary”. This government owned company then gets a government contract to supply x number of ship to the Royal Fleet Auxilliary and Royal Navy on an as needed basis with the excess tonnage available for commercial service. Requirement of the “contract” is that the ships be UK built. 😎

(Australia had a government owned shipping line until the late 1990’s).

Details? You’re not talking about those ships the MSDF proposed just so they can have them cut from the budget and say “we’ve done our part in saving money”?

22DDH?

The problem with that theory is that the British shipbuilding industry is effectively dead on a commercial level. More to the point, there is no point in building additional hulls when the there is no conceivable budget scenario under which they could be fully equipped and fitted out, let alone manned, operated and maintained.

In any case, a few short term, temporary shipbuilding jobs won’t do much to decrease unemployment. It’s hard to even imagine very much enthusiasm in the British workforce for the sort of industrial employment that has been unfamiliar for the last two generations.

A government order for 2-4 Tankers, Container ships or RO-RO’s every year from UK ship yards would deal with that little problem rather quickly.

Indeed that is what I have heard, for that matter the RAF is rather loath to loose the deep strike capability the GR4 offers. The Typhoon is very good but there are certain things the GR4 does better and cheaper! I have heard that their is some internal argument within the RAF to keep the GR4 beyond 2030 hence the desire to fit it with an AESA radar and other toys.

To many in the RAF who are still upset over the loss of FOAS the F35A or C would be the only suitable replacement for GR4.

Tornado GR.4 has a radar?:confused:

Agree though, I want the Air Force to keep their mits of the JSF and if this is the way to make sure that the carrier always has a decent number of wings on the deck then I’m a happy man.

Wonder if you could modify the Typhoon trainer into an F-15E style strike aircraft as a partial tornado replacement, with the first day capability taken by VLO UCAV’s.