Re: The proposed two Royal Navy 'super carriers'

In message <150220061647564871%alanlothian@xxxxxxx>, Alan Lothian <alanlothian@xxxxxxx> writes
What we (ie Euros and Americans alike) really need is not sooper-dooper
strike aircraft (consider the ludicrous Eurofighter) but infantry
battalions. We in Britland have only 28,000 fighting infantrymen.
Stalwart they be, but there are only 28,000. We need more of them, not
silly superplanes, whoever makes most money from them.

Too true. Thus, we're losing another four infantry battalions as we speak.

Nor Type 45
superships, whose utility is very seriously questionable.

Now, I fear, I must defend the Navy.

When the war's overseas, then your troops and their kit tend to go by sea (moving by air is tricky even for the US with its embarrassing riches of strategic lift; the notion that the UK's going to insert and sustain more than a company or two of light infantry with our four C-17s is just not credible).

Unfortunately, ships full of troops, equipment and supplies are notoriously vulnerable: think MV Atlantic Conveyor, think RFA Sir Galahad. Even the Iraqis - hardly models of competence and capability - managed to heave two HY-2 missiles at one of the bombardment groups off Kuwait in 1991 (a colleague was the PWO on HMS Gloucester, which shot down the one that didn't ditch).

How do we defend those ships? Fighter cover might be a good idea, but we're losing the fighters this year (six or seven years without is apparently an 'acceptable risk'). Escorting warships can offer some protection, but the Type 42 destroyers are entering their third decade and Sea Dart - though much more capable than many seem to think - still dates from a 1957 staff requirement. (You also need the warship to be escorting, but that gets you into unseemly arguments about fleet size and accusations of special pleading). It doesn't help that two UK replacements were killed, then NFR-90 died a slow and painful death and finally Horizon bogged down in a morass of incompatible requirements...


Chaps, boots, ground.

Granted, but they need to get there, enjoy a workable supply route, and be able to get out.

One would think that in a country (UK) whose Dear
Leader has taken us to war in more places than any other PM ever, this
idea might just have crossed some sort of threshold, but apparently
not.

Once upon a time, it is said that the Phoenicians threw their infants into the furnaces as a sacrifice to Moloch: our PM and Chancellor prefer to use money rather than babies, but the principle seems to be the same: to hurl money at a Good Cause (be it health, education, or transgendered outreach consolidation co-ordinators) is an aim and end in itself.

Meanwhile, rightly understanding the risk concepts of the 21st
century, what passes for our Parliament has just banned smoking.

Well, quite. Can you think of anything more important?

If it saves the life of even *one* small child...!

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBox<at>jrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk
.

Relevant Pages

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