UK Defence Forum

Rivers in the Caribbean have been given the rationale that by training the local CG personnel we are helping with the upgrading of those "forces" from boats to more capable vessels - I buy into that - but who is going to buy the vessels for them? I think the order placed by Trinidad went ...

The latest rumours I hear is there are hopes that the 3 batch 1 River OPVs will have their funding extended to allow them to continue to operate in UK home waters to around 2027 (at which point they will 25 years old). This will allow the B2 OPVs to be forward deployed, first to the Falklands (Fort...

Well your knowledge seems to be lacking as you only seem to think medical staff can come from the NHS which is clearly bull but don’t let that get in the way. But yes we are off topic Ok, maybe I am obsessed with the NHS. Wonder why that could be. The point is that the N in NHS stands for National,...

Jake1992 wrote:rude twat

reign it in. If you don’t like being called out for being dumb, stop being dumb. Secondly who said the staff have to come from the NHS ? We have a thriving privet health sector along with large organisation like doctors with out boarders where with the right pay and incentives staff could be drawn ...

The role I’d want the HADR vessel to do is HADR globally, medical aid to poorer nations ( like the US hospital ships ) and provided a large high end medical capability to the UK when needed. The bays can only do part of this. I would look to have a pair of these not just one and as we’ve seen with ...

I don’t think it should be hospital ship it should be a HADR ship with very large medical facilities at least a 100 bed. DFID have been hinting over the summer of 2 vessels for this role so why not add large medical set up to them. Just one question. Where are you getting the clinical staff from???...

xav wrote:I must have missed something. Are they saying otherwise ?

Save The Royal Navy are reporting 57/40 is a done deal. However as it's an unofficial source that's not attributing their information to a named person.

So seeking additional independent corroboration.

xav wrote:Apologies for the delay, we *try* to polish our edits and make them look nice...

Thanks Xav, great content as always.

I've no reason to doubt Save The Royal Navy, but it's still an unofficial source.

Are you also under the impression that the 57mm and 40mm combo is now almost certain?

Exactly, with a lot more range than Phalanx, a much simpler system and much quicker reload times (that's a blind guess - happy to be corrected). So, from my extensive research (two mins on Google) it seems around four minutes for Phalanx if you have an automatic deckloader, or around 30 minutes if ...

Why go with 40mm over 30mm+LMM? LMM is a means of getting a small proximity fused warhead out to a distance of around 5 miles. Exactly the same with 40mm. I don't see a single way in which 30mm Bushmaster is superior to 40mm Mk4 apart from probably having cheaper but much less flexible ammo. The ne...

“Eight?; Eight!?; Five; maybe Eight.”

https://www.defenceprocurementinternati ... -dsei-2019 Not sure how "reliable" this article is (I hope he is surely not mixing Leander and River B2). Independent issue is, if RN will be interested in this "apparently heavily armed" version, or not. I hope NOT, but I wanna see th...

What the hell as we going to talk about here now? How about the Government's brand new "maritime export strategy"?! https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/imps-news/navy-watchers-quiver-arrowhead-140-gets-go-ahead/ At an evening function on 11 September, Elizabeth Truss, Secretary of State fo...

FT text. Babcock group wins contract to build Royal Navy frigates Deal throws potential lifeline to collapsed shipyards in N Ireland and Scotland A consortium led by defence group Babcock International has won the competition to build new frigates for the Royal Navy, securing hundreds of jobs at Bri...

Who knows, maybe Navantia will buy Harland and Wolff and the build a UK design in a UK shipyard (owned by a Spanish company). Harland and Wolff has a workforce of 130. And you don't just recruit a trained and skilled workforce overnight. So where do you get them from? Easyjet fly from Madrid to Bel...

They have names, we just don’t know what they are. But Burslem, home of Port Vale FC, seems unlikely. Type 31 Frigates Ruth Smeeth: [284468] To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of naming one of the future Type 31 frigates after Burslem, th...

Poiuytrewq wrote:Lots of chat that Navantia was being lined up as preferred bidder but things may have moved on with this new Bojo lead administration.

So that's based on a story in the Daily Record quoting the SNP and GMB! C'mon please.

Poiuytrewq wrote:The Navantia design is supposed to be the front runner so it must be substantially larger than a 20k tonne class vessel. It will be interesting to see what BMT have done with the Cantabria design. Shouldn't have to wait long to find out....

What makes you think it's the front-runner?

SDL wrote:Is QE in any way capable of assisting with aid to areas hit by Dorian atm?

Not if she's still off the coast of Cornwall.

Repulse wrote:With the Leander there is a chance for exporting design, support and maintenance skills - for the Arrowhead there is zero chance, why would they not just go straight to the Dutch.

Because the Dutch have freak-all to do with the Arrowhead design.

Objections to Arrowhead being selected as the successful Type 31e bidder have always fallen into two broad categories: i) Fundamental opposition to the T31e concept - so let's spend as little as possible and get the crappiest solution ii) English jobs, even though metal-bashing accounts for a minori...

Have you any credible source to back that up? Nope. But apart from a single speech and a few Tweets by people no longer in-post what's the evidence for it being a requirement? Which project team does it sit under? Are any contracts out to tender? If you do a search for FLSS on the MoD website (whic...

Repulse wrote:then in my view the FLSS requirement would go away

The FLSS requirement went away when Gavin Williamson got sacked.