UK Defence Forum

(Christopher Gardener) 5th December 2019

4th December 2020 - Its exactly a year to the day that QE returned home to Portsmouth from Westlant 19 and also the first time both QE and PoW were together in Portsmouth Harbour.

This is my attempt at the same picture from a couple of weeks back, bit rude of BA to not fly a little closer!

Just need official conformation now.

wondered when this would hit mainstream media. All I can add is nipper was not on board at time so not on his watch.

QE was commissioned into the Royal Navy exactly three years ago today; on 7th December 2017.

PhillyJ wrote:wondered when this would hit mainstream media. All I can add is nipper was not on board at time so not on his watch.

I think it was obvious from the earlier picture of flooding that electric switch gear and cabling got wet. You cant just dry it out and everything will be ok, parts need replacement and in some cases have to be made.

I did know it was bad as my nipper told me the gory details but obviously I couldn't say. He is pretty downhearted at the moment and thinking of handing in his chit April due to the amount of time he has spent at Pompey and not on the seas.

PhillyJ wrote:He is pretty downhearted at the moment

Cant say I blame him. Is there not any courses he can sign up for, that will help him advance his career.

bobp wrote:

PhillyJ wrote:He is pretty downhearted at the moment

Cant say I blame him. Is there not any courses he can sign up for, that will help him advance his career.

He is working towards his LH but needs sea time as well to complete the requirements I think. He has asked for a loan to another ship, a lot of his old phase 1 buddies have been on 45's and 23's so often talk about where they've been, but nothing forthcoming so far. Will see him over Christmas and hopefully talk him into staying, I think the RN has exciting times ahead but getting a 21 yr old to believe that after cleaning the boat bay for the umpteenth time is not going to be easy!

PhillyJ wrote:his old phase 1 buddies

Hmmm a lot of his buddies I am sure would like to serve on a Carrier. Look at what HMS QE has done so far. Just unfortunate that POW has had to remain out of action for so long.

PhillyJ wrote:I did know it was bad as my nipper told me the gory details but obviously I couldn't say. He is pretty downhearted at the moment and thinking of handing in his chit April due to the amount of time he has spent at Pompey and not on the seas.

Hopefully it will be on the way to being sorted by then, it must have knocked a massive hole in the deployment plans though.

Well at least we now know which social media accounts are merely positive pr spin (the ones that were shouting nothing to see here to all and sundry) and those that offer a more considered critique.

He needs to get some time in. Youth of today, etc, etc....

second flood

2nd I cant remember the first one on the POW.

I was a bit surprised they use Sea water for the fire fighting as I thought they had a form system for that now. I guess when you are in the middle of the ocean you use the water that is available to fight fires.

Depressing to think the POW will have been at the dock side an entire year before she is ready to go back to sea again.

Jdam wrote:Depressing to think the POW will have been at the dock side an entire year before she is ready to go back to sea again

How do you keep 800 plus crew busy over a year?

bobp wrote:

Jdam wrote:Depressing to think the POW will have been at the dock side an entire year before she is ready to go back to sea again

How do you keep 800 plus crew busy over a year?

Enforced fun.

bobp wrote:

Jdam wrote:Depressing to think the POW will have been at the dock side an entire year before she is ready to go back to sea again

How do you keep 800 plus crew busy over a year?

Tin of grey paint and a brush?

bobp wrote:keep 800 plus crew busy over a year?

A prolonged port visit... wait! All the pubs shut

PhillyJ wrote:

bobp wrote:

PhillyJ wrote:He is pretty downhearted at the moment

Cant say I blame him. Is there not any courses he can sign up for, that will help him advance his career.

He is working towards his LH but needs sea time as well to complete the requirements I think. He has asked for a loan to another ship, a lot of his old phase 1 buddies have been on 45's and 23's so often talk about where they've been, but nothing forthcoming so far. Will see him over Christmas and hopefully talk him into staying, I think the RN has exciting times ahead but getting a 21 yr old to believe that after cleaning the boat bay for the umpteenth time is not going to be easy!

Hope he sticks with it.

SW1 wrote:Well at least we now know which social media accounts are merely positive pr spin (the ones that were shouting nothing to see here to all and sundry) and those that offer a more considered critique.

I'm a bit divided on this. There is of course the need to maintain 'some' secrecy in the defence world (even though PoW is not yet operational). But I'd be intrigued to know if the Parliamentary Defence Committee had been briefed on this, or on the major delays to Vanguards refit and another V boat being in dock in Faslane for an extended period. The MoD really are terrible at managing bad news, but also have never seemed to grasp the fact that hiding problems away has never ended up being a good idea either reputationally or politically. We really do need a far better system of accountability and scrutiny, their obfuscation and economy with the truth with Parliament in particular is appalling.

But the shocking thing is that its seen as good practice to 'get on the front foot' for a bad news story. Get your version of the truth out there first. Did they think that no-one would notice that the ship hadn't left harbour for planned deployments? With COVID they've had the ultimate excuse to 'bury bad news' for months in a row, they could have slipped the news out and it would barely have been noticed in the media furore. Instead its leaked out and they look dishonest and inept...

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt

Yeah, people have laughed a lot when Germans or Russians had shipbuilding problems...

Nuclear powered for a cool $6bn.

https://www.marinelink.com/news/frances ... ier-483735

Personally I think two QE's was a much better option.

I noted that it would host up to 30 Rafales similar to the Queen Elizabeth class for F35B

Timmymagic wrote: need a far better system of accountability and scrutiny, their obfuscation and economy with the truth with Parliament in particular is appalling.

It is a reflection of a more general problem: a system in which ' the Executive branch' is over-powerful. Sprinkle in the in itself legitimate 'cloak of secrecy' that sometimes is needed in national security matters, and we seem to have a problem that has been acknowledged, hasn't been rectified over at least two decades.

Timmymagic wrote: I'd be intrigued to know if the Parliamentary Defence Committee had been briefed on this, or on the major delays to Vanguards refit

Well, at least the outside observers can count: when the unexpected reactor problems surfaced in these subs, the queue for 'spares' could not cope and grew to 51 months (behind from what had been planned). Then similarly, when the problem turned out not to be as systemic as was expected, that lag almost overnight went down to 9 months.
- the Committee does get briefings ' with the curtains in the room drawn'
- it is down to the Chair, how he sees the 'watch dog' role. Rory was so good at it that he was made a minister within months. I am hopeful that T.E. will see the role similarly, but will break less glass in the china shop (a way to get results)