Response from an MoD civil servant on another forum... "Some key points to note here. Firstly, the RN has known about this impending retir,ent for many years. It has delegated authority in its budget to find and buy replacements. It has repeatedly chosen not to, preferring instead to fund other...

It isn't a matter of underfunding per se though. It's the serial incompetence of defence acquisition which doesn't learn from past mistakes and compounds them with barely an eye to future effects. Whether that be slowing down work on the Astute's, Carriers, Type 26s or the constant kneejerk scrappin...

A spokesman for the Navy said: “All Royal Navy ships carry a range of offensive and defensive weapons systems. Backed by a rising defence budget and a £178 billion equipment plan, upgrade options to all our weapons are kept under constant review.” More like a spokesman for the Ministry of Dunces. I...

Well to speculate that the document which was meant to map out a sustainable future for the shipyards and surface fleet...

Basically it signals that neither is sustainable.

Which is why I'm thinking they aren't planning on releasing it...

Who knows, there was a leak suggesting that he was recommending sharing work around shipyards but nothing else.

Well Sir John Parker's report isn't being released apparently.

Must have criticized them too heavily.

"A messenger boat? is the the 1700's? What the goal of a River patrolling "around the landing area"? What does it do that the other platforms don't?" Troop transport, helicopter insertion, logistics shuttling, helicopter refueling, casevac, casualty ferry, ASuW picket with Wildc...

I think we should take a leaf out of Trump's book and use defence spending and infrastructure ( though not that awful HS2 malarky) instead of quantitative easing which only helps prop up banks. I mean it isn't as though you could point to any of the three services and not see opportunities to re-equ...

Nothing in the press about it..

Just how often have you been checking AIS?

2000t is too small? Try 40t. https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/imps-news/indo-defence-2016-tank-boat-dominance-moves-river/ "‘What is unique about the CMI gun is it has 42° elevation so that when an amphibious landing reaches stage two on the shore it can beach land and provide an artillery fu...

If its part of a larger fleet its redundant because much more capable vessels are there. No.. You don't understand artillery effects. The first salvo is the most destructive, hoping to catch targets unaware and before they've found cover or before they can move. Whilst a single naval piece can equa...

"How about a case study? " I don't think you understand the full picture. You appear to have an image in your head a single River closing on a well defended enemy coast... NGFS is not conducted in a vacuum as I thought I'd already stated. Anytime it is used would be as part of a larger fle...

A terrorist attack on a civilian vessel?

Not sure what you think your point is....

Interesting.... Though the Vanguards should be double cost as they are double crewed. Also the air ops component of all of the amphibs and carriers is missing. The best thing about the new builds is their reduced crewing, would be interesting to see what effect the currently 200+ Type 23s have when ...

I wasn't really talking about new builds, as I said such a thing would only be a refit away. I'm sure the RN could have bolted on all sorts of bits and pieces but that would have put it's frigate programmes at risk. The Avenger was merely a lengthened River class, don't think the beam was increased ...

Was thinking more for the fantasy RN fleet regarding manpower.

Also £350m for a Type 26 and £150m for a Venator seem like 50% discounts!

Any chance of adding a manpower budget? It is after all the biggest constraint the RN faces at the moment.

Arguably less vulnerable should a more realistic and robust NGFS solution exist. Without it a defended shore line could pretty much stick any A2AD pretty much on the shoreline. Best thing to target soft skins like them is with naval artillery. With an NGFS capability they'd be pushed back inland. Be...

"Whats the point in a River class for NGFS is it needs an escort? surely just use the escorts gun?" Because the escort is conducting defensive ASW somewhere else? Once you have a beach head established the capable escorts will be defending it to prevent anything slipping through to the amp...

The hull itself can take a 5", as seen by the stretched version offered for the Type 31. Which is a very bad idea for the RN at present as all a politician would see if something that looks like a frigate. "To make that acceptable it would also need Artisan, CAMM, Phalanx, Countermeasures,...

Yep, seen that before. The key is the move to offboard sensors. Whether UAV, UUV or helicopter based the argument holds that the launch platform itself doesn't matter much. Which, with the proviso that most of these have yet to be developed, I fully agree. Capital ships and firepower are great but m...

They do bear a startling similarity to the mooted Black Swan class. Never seen the compliment stated as being so high. Batch 1s it was 30 and most sources give 34 for the Batch 2's. Accommodation for 108, if I'm reading the article correctly, gives the lie to the term OPV. Why have replenishment sta...

Well Lusty is being sold for scrap, a whopping £2.1m... An LPH isn't a particularly expensive asset, would you rather have such a capability or a couple of F-35s? They are fairly primitive in naval terms, not much in the way of expensive systems just a big flight deck and lots of accomodation. The p...

"the extra space and mission bays built into River B.2 allows for the potential use of unmanned systems"

Do you have a link to this article?