Not sure if this thread is good, but interesting fact. Surprisingly @USNavy has decided to remove hard-kill torpedo defence from aircraft carriers Navy Lookout. https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/1092725976943996928 For me, it is not surprising. Underwater detection is difficult. Hence, it is al...

UKDJ, "Royal Marines train for Arctic war games" https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/royal-marines-train-for-arctic-war-games/ Although small document, it is interesting in a few points. - "six Offshore Raiding Craft, eight Inshore Raiding Craft and two Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel – h...

Donald san, you present the man power issue as an immovable object, which of course it is not. The Navy (and all the forces) have got a four years to make them self a more attractive employer and stem the huge losses each year. Another part of the solution is modern ships, with better deployment pa...

The RN absolutely needs another frigate. Only 14 escorts to protect two carriers and an amphibious group is ridiculous. If that happens the RN really will have bet everything on the carriers and gone bust. But RN CANNOT man them, without putting precious T23ASWs or T45s into extended readiness . Yo...

The only trouble with selling Ocean to Brazil is that we first had to give them £80m, as aid, so that they could then pull the money out of that budget into the defence budget to pay for Ocean. I suspect that something similar will happen with the T23's if we sell them. I see only positive here? Wh...

Your point on manning is understandable, but it is very very slow. On 2018, I understand RN has zero increase in man-power, albeit budgeted for 400 more. They are struggling to stop the reduction, which looks like almost stoped. Good work. And, it is not "yesterday". We need more than 2-3 ...

Buying ship which cannot be used, how can this make RN more effective? What do you mean "cannot be used"? The crew of five T31 = three T23, they should help release some of the pressure. Crew, equivalent to those of the first 2 T23GP (decommission in 2023 and 2024), is non existing (2 esc...

The DE&S value assessment should absolutely included local economic benefits such as the ones suggested above, that would give any UK bid around a 20% head start, which is an easy zero cost method to 'level the playing field'. How much actually the benefit is. Even if you order ships within UK,...

If the T31 programme was halted or kicked into the long grass and two T23's were sold now before LIFEX then the manning issue as discussed would start to ease within three to four years All this does is delay the pain. This is the exact reason the equipment plan in such a mess, the MOD continually ...

RN has a bad history ordering something in hurry right before the review . HMS Ocean refit, Diligence refit, and many others. Sometime RN do good decisions , such as keeping 2 Hunts in dry dock without upgrade with a foresight of them to be disbanded, and keeping River B1 in extended readiness. In ...

SDSR2020 is coming, very very soon. RN must put decision very carefully. There is a 7-14.8Bn gap on 10 years 180Bn GBP equipment budget, 2019-2028. Within this period, RN is planning to get (be handed over) 3 or 4 T26, 5 T31, 4 Astute SSNs, 1 Dreadnought, 2 MARS SSS, and a few MHCs at most. I think ...

I cannot understand the argument here. Over crewing is not an option for RN, at least until 2030 or even later. RN lacks crew. If apply "over crew", it simply means further escorts will go into extended readiness. Ship swap will be the way to support "forward deployed" assets. A ...

Considering the crew allocation, I am facing big difficulty. ... Analysis is analysis, it will make clear what the priority of RN must be. The first thing I shall propose is to increase man-power by 60 each year from 2021, until 2025. This will provide 300 in total at 2025, meaning ~150 more crews ...

Considering the crew allocation, I am facing big difficulty. 1: Current status assessment - RN lacks 400 crew, so that 1 T45 and 1 T23 are in extended readiness. (-400) - 5 T23 is in refit, on which I think only 2 is in normal rotation. Even if the "3 more" in LIFEX has a half of their cre...

Couple of quick notes here. 1) You can't leave the Antarctic like that without Protector. It's performing an extremely busy workload down there, and without its presence, both the British Antarctic Presence and the ice sheets would encounter issues for passing ships. It has no real purpose up north...

Alix Valeti : #surfacewarship conference in London,Commander of Maritime ops @RoyalNavy explains that (1)presence in Arctic will be strengthened,(2)as will presence in Indo-Pacific,(3)confirms that UK is looking to build bases on overseas territories (also used to deploy Type31 & OPVs). Confirm...

I completely disagree with the final conclusions. Me too, the author is pretty much apologising for the MOD's continual failures. Speed is a function of money. At the moment the schedule is slowed to so the annual budget stretched further, the MOD's favourite trick. They should have invested in the...

The crew of HMS Forth. I can see 34 of them (excluding the one taking the photo). As River B2 needs 36 crew to steam (*1), I think that is her crew. *1: sometimes quoted ~60 is the number including the "additional crew" for rotation, to secure ~300 days of sea going days. https://mobile.tw...

What the RN needs to avoid is for example having a fixed design for the T-31e, one that already is at its maximum potential like the old T-21s. .......... having a clear upgrade path of each platform to maximise their capability. It was my impression that that is exactly what they have asked for wi...

For large mother ship, I agree it is good, but UK already have Bays. Do we really need more? Yes please :thumbup: But we have no task for "the 4th Bay". Station 2 Bays in Caribbean? Using it for APT-S? I think there is no need for amphibious tasks, in normal days... May be as a drone moth...

I think so. River B2 has many tasks to do, but none of it will be to work as CVTF.

Beautiful shot, it is. OPV and CV, both are important, but with very different tasks. Showing the wide-range of RN tasks.

... As for the “simple” mother ship. When people develop what these other tasks are it invariable comes back to Falklands guardship, something in the med, mcm in the gulf or something in the Caribbean doing martime security and then insist they much be met by an opv or something described as a ligh...

Do not agree here. MHC with such an equipment will not be cheap. May be only 8 hull will be possible with 1B GBP, and another 1-1.5B GBP is desparately needed for developing/buying drones, which will never be cheap. I feel this ship can be built for 150 million each meaning 15 would = 2.25 billion ...

I think you're assumption on the 20nm radar limit for detection of sea skimming missile is misguided. This may be true of low mounted fixed planar arrays, but not the case with Artisan and SAMPSON which are mounted twice as high. Just FACT. Height vs Horizon. 60 m 15.8 nm 45 m 13.7 nm 30 m 11.2 nm ...