Ron5 wrote:It was that f**wit Osborne that savagely cut the UK military with no thought to consequences in support of his daft financial ideas. And lied about it to both parliament and the electorate. And did so with the full blessing and backing of the other f**wit Cameron.
No doubt in the fullness of time their contributions will be recognized with a Lordship like that other serial liar Hammond.
Unfortunately their ideas are still strong in Boris's circle.
Oh man this is sooo off topic, I'll be crucified
Wrote my dissertation on escort production, not sure the 2+12+20(20!?) was ever more than a pipedream.Jake1992 wrote:The expected path for the RN when the QEs were designed was that they’d end up with 12 T45s ( replacing the T42 one for one ) and 20 T26 ( replacing the then 16 T23s and 4 T22s like for like ) then Blair started the cuts selling 3 T23s and the crash follow SRD 2010 cut the T22s.serge750 wrote:When they were designed it seemed like the RN was in a good place anticipating they would get the airwing needed, but the 2010 sdsr messed everything up badly, how many T23 & T22 were cut...inch wrote:Just to throw a spanner in the mix ,if only ever going to be smaller numbers onboard in reality should they have built so big ,yes I know by the argument about was designed to facilitate and generate so many sorties etc and the saving scale of bigger etc but in reality if only ever going to Carry so much less than was Designed for 99% of her life why bother ? And yes it's early days and going to take time to build up aircraft numbers etc etc ,but will still only deploy 99% time with less after that .yes I know we got them now so mute point I quess now ,and great looking they are too
Interesting idea as having a QEC as a north atlantic carrier with a multi national airwing, would all the other nations be willing to have such small fleets ( maybe 12 each ) of the B version? would be good for co-operation though, 4 assigned from each nation along with 4 from the uk ? just like with the usmc
I can’t see nations that are not already planning F35B purchases getting any at all but we could see Italy and Spain putting a few towards an air group now and then.
The main factors behind escorts falling by half 2000 through 2020 was:
1 - Reorganising of all UK warship production under a profit maximising monopoly.
2 - Tony Blair's bloody escapades.
3 - Terrible contracting (govt side).
4 - Not a 7% fall in MoD equipment spend. The output is entirely disproportionate.
Good news is T31 has thoroughly reversed the most significant factor whilst protecting Scottish shipbuilding and the Union. Well thought out all round.
" in QE's Tweet refers to a RN sub too. Should be a sight to behold.
