Comments on: The sorry state of the current Royal Navy – Who’s to blame?

By: stmzcool

stmzcool — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 21:26:09 +0000

ref comment 3…think you mean Army…

By: It can be done

It can be done — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:06:35 +0000

Re: The Defense Industry. I see this argument a lot about buying off the shelf foreign equipment. Well I am sorry but if we are prepared to equip are armed services with foreign equipment and fire all the highly skilled hard working engineers who build our ships, fighting vehicles and planes (and used to make our socks for that matter) then what exactly are we fighting for! Securing jobs for foreign workers? You are looking at it completly the wrong way round. With ship building for example the government should be working with industry to guarantee ongoing work for many many years into the future. (Instead of stop/start all the time, we should always have been building aircraft carriers then the one off prices would not be anything like they are). With this stability the deal should be that they then use the same facilities to build commercial shipping, reviving our ship building industry and in the long term bringing down the cost of our warships. Its a lack of vision, foresight, planning ahead and above all negativity that is the problem. Have a little faith in your own countrymen is what I say, deep down we all know the right thing we just need to all start steering this island nation in the right direction again.

By: Paul Smyth

Paul Smyth — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:22:58 +0000

Admirals: yes, but Navy Board still set priorities for spending of Naval budget and decided what sort of emphasis was placed on FAA, Submarines, Grey ladies etc.

Academics: to a point you get what you invest in and who you foster. I don’t think there a many more AP academics but a lot more AP commentators – two different things. However, I would say that UK AP thinking has a better link to larger US AP community, but a similar maritime relationship/influence hasn’t existed. My own view is that too many British AP zealots miss the important specifics which distinguish US thinking/practice from our own. The letter was sent abt a year ago, blowing the Harrier trumpet and criticising the Tornado with ill-judged, inaccurate and blatantly biased arguments = weak effect.

Trident: yes, agreed. A separate funding stream would help but it was a fact of life constraint on fiscal options. Back to the Admirals. Personally, I think the RN has made a similar mistake with CVF. It has been far too slow and secretive to discuss the liability these ships will bring to the Fleet and the true cost (£) of their arrival (e.g. oilers etc).

By: NavyLookout

NavyLookout — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:53:09 +0000

Thanks for comments Paul. Partially agree:

ADMIRALS – some may have pushed for vessels that were over-complex in the past but generally they were trying to equip RN as best they could. They can’t be blamed for continual cuts to their budgets and moving goalposts of defence policy.

MARITIME ACADEMICS – There are precious few of these! (massively outnumbered by airpower academics and students). They are largely ignored by government anyway and can carry little blame. What Harriers letter do you mean? The demise of the Harrier entirely down to an RAF plot.

GOVT & CABINETS – fully agree they must take the largest share of responsibility.

TRIDENT – Not RN’s fault that govt does not fund the deterrent separately. Submarine-based weapons are only credible deterrent so RN must operate the subs. Robbing the naval budget to pay for Trident is indeed a factor in the decline of RN.

By: Paul Smyth

Paul Smyth — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:37:55 +0000

a) Admirals
b) Maritime academics
c) Government Cabinets
d) Trident
e) All the above

It is disingenuous to point the finger at the other Services, especially when it is retired Admirals doing the pointing. Their watch was their responsibility.

Sadly, arguments put forward to promote the Navy’s case are routinely hampered by weak logic and poor operational understanding. RN has not been best served by academia or those who try to fight it’s corner. Letter to PM on Harriers a classic case.

By: Richard Fyfe

Richard Fyfe — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:41:50 +0000

John Skelding is 100% correct. The political masters have done to the RN with the assistance of misguided Lordships what the USSR could not accomplish,while the USA will be very pleased again when they sell us all the american hardware after we destroy our own planes, ships etc.

The giving over of HMS Caledonia to the Army for me is the last straw. Are we being run by 5th columnists from the USA ?

By: Meister

Meister — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 10:58:25 +0000

John, there is a lot of truth in what you say. The RN top brass, in their obsession with returning to the big carrier league, somehow persuaded a government that didn’t know any better to build the QE class – the wrong ship at the wrong time. They totally misjudged the context of the SDSR and as a result the RN came out as the biggest loser. On two occassions on national TV/radio in the run-up to SDSR I witnessed senior officers trying to put the RN’s case for resources, and their performance was nothing short of lamentable. They have presided over the decimation of the fleet and created, literally, a rudderless service.

By: John Skelding

John Skelding — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:31:04 +0000

All undoubtedly true as far as it goes, but with one glaring omission – the navy itself. Successive generations of senior officers, most of whom have been mediocre career-obsessed technocrats, have been just as guilty as the RAF of playing inter-service politics. They’ve also been relentless in demanding only the most overblown and expensive pieces of kit, eg Type 45s, Astute subs and above all the ludicrous QE carriers. Add a complacent and incompetent PR ‘machine’, to which in fairness you do allude, which utterly fails to stress the importance of the RN to the country (contrast the way in which the RAF cleverely sustains the Battle of Britain myth), and you end up with the situation we’ve reached.