Mine countermeasures and Hydrographic capability (MHC) (MHPC)

[Engaging Strategy]

The price of carrier strike, a price that will continue to grow and a navy high command prepared to gut a navy to pay for a capability that will now be a shadow of what was initially envisaged. Chickens of sdsr15 are starting to come home to roost.

Blaming everything on carrier strike is a tired canard. Massive cuts to the defence budget got us here. Not the carriers.

[Gabriele]

Could just as easily blame it on the Army, who contrary to myths gets more equipment money 2016 - 2026 than the Navy (submarines & deterrent excluded) and the air force both; and uses it to build up brigades that, behind the "strike" buzzword are literally just the weakest mechanized brigades in the world.

[~UNiOnJaCk~]

^ There is only one figure to blame in this, the Treasury (and or it's ministerial masters, the PM included). Inter-service squabbling will help no one and will in fact only harm the defence budget further.

There needs to be a concerted and very public effort by all three services to bring to light, in immaculate detail, the failings of this government, and those that came before it, with regards to the provision of our national defence and security. There needs to be an itemised break down of all the problems with our current defence situation presented to the public that leaves the government with nowhere to hide. The dangerous apathy towards our national security needs to be exposed, an outcry created, and the days of penny pinching defence spending consigned to the history books.

[MRCA]

The price of carrier strike, a price that will continue to grow and a navy high command prepared to gut a navy to pay for a capability that will now be a shadow of what was initially envisaged. Chickens of sdsr15 are starting to come home to roost.

Blaming everything on carrier strike is a tired canard. Massive cuts to the defence budget got us here. Not the carriers.

Defence knew what there budget was. The navy control there bit of the budget it was a known budget. When your largest surface ship capability program budget doubles in size within a finite budget things get cut. When you can’t control costs on your existing programs things get cut. When you base your future expenditures on huge saving within your budget and then can’t deliver things get cut. When you adopt a buy American approach and the exchange rate tanks things get cut. When the nao audited the MODs equipment budget plan after 2015 it raised these very concerns and they were dismissed by MoD. You pays your money you make your choices. Sdsr10 was budget reality sdsr 15 was budget fantasy.

[Engaging Strategy]

Defence knew what there budget was. The navy control there bit of the budget it was a known budget.

Except the carriers were ordered in 2007, long before the massive cuts of 2010.

When your largest surface ship capability program budget doubles in size within a finite budget things get cut.

Remind me who it was was piling on the costs? Oh yeah, the government, by choosing to slow production and then flip flop on CATOBAR. Not the RN.

You pays your money you make your choices. Sdsr10 was budget reality sdsr 15 was budget fantasy.

Both SDSRs were budget fantasy. Pretending that you can slash a third off the finances and continue doing what you did before. If you want to cut capacity and capability you also have to cut commitments. Which we aren't doing, because the expected outputs aren't changing. So It's "doing more with less". Fantasy. Either fund your ambitions or abandon them, there's no other options here.

[Dahedd]

That Daily Mail story is pure mince.

Selling HMS Scott, the 145s & the Warthogs is a stupid move.

But the rest of the list is ancient & obsolete gear or stuff like the Tucanos or Hercs already being replaced.

[Ron5]

The price of carrier strike, a price that will continue to grow and a navy high command prepared to gut a navy to pay for a capability that will now be a shadow of what was initially envisaged. Chickens of sdsr15 are starting to come home to roost.

The RAF ran Nimrod MRA4 program threw away more money than it would have cost to at least buy two more carriers.

The two programs with the biggest budget overruns on the books today are the RAF's Typhoon and F-35.

[MRCA]

Engaging strategy

Do you really think you pay for something when you order it? The budget maybe ring fenced but we’re still paying for it now. As the got lord adm west said recently everyone knew the carriers would cost more than the 3.7b max budget agreed. But then it’s an old mod problem get a project started and hope special pleading will cover the cost overrun when it come politically more difficult to cancel than continue.

Your not seriously that naive are you? The reason the thing was delayed was because the budget was blown you cannot spend money you don’t have. The capability was way way over spec’d they were told it before it started but heads were in the sand and fingers in the ears, as reality is playing out that disconnect between ambition and reality has grown ever larger. If you don’t think the service chiefs were not up to there necks in the Cats and traps flip flip your out of your mind. You’d be lucky to find a politian that knows the difference.

No sdsr 2010 was fiscal reality. What your discribing is operational reality. That continues to be the MoD problem, capabilities were cut numbers were cut,readiness was cut. Your quite right in that commitments should be abandoned, instead of pretending there not I’m quite happy to do less with less. However the senior military and political leadership seem unable to admit it.

Ron

Do you think I think this is just a navy problem? Yep nimrod was a nonsense and that boil was lanced in sdsr2010 and p8 should not of been ordered, because we don’t have the budget for it without cutting something else.

Yep typhoon was over-budget but that resulted in numbers being cut and force structure reduced significantly to stay within the overall agreed budget much like type 45 going from 12 to 6, but I don’t hear the RAF crying there eyes out in the papers every time there’s a budget cut. At least with typhoon we were at least able to sell quite a number overseas which at least allowed us to generate some budget space while keeping the production line going. Yep f35 the central pillar of carrier strike is also way over budget and continues to go up thanks to exchange rate fluctuations. That program will likely stop at 48 a/c and be stretched out.

So if cutting hydrographic and mine Warfare vessels is how the navy chooses to go then fine I think there wrong because the capability offered by such vessels is more important to a coalition and of more national value than a RM light infantry battalion or a couple of escorts but it’s there choice, there less sexy and no one in the press will notice so less politically l embarrassing than mothballing a carrier straight out of the builder yard.

What we’re seeing is media special pleading for more money the old ways die hard at mod.

[Engaging Strategy]

Engaging strategy

Do you really think you pay for something when you order it? The budget maybe ring fenced but we’re still paying for it now. As the got lord adm west said recently everyone knew the carriers would cost more than the 3.7b max budget agreed. But then it’s an old mod problem get a project started and hope special pleading will cover the cost overrun when it come politically more difficult to cancel than continue.

Without the politiclly imposed delay and flip flop thr carriers come in at around £4bn. Not a million miles from the estimate. But hey that's what you get when politicians are allowed to put their oar in once the build's been started.

Your not seriously that naive are you? The reason the thing was delayed was because the budget was blown you cannot spend money you don’t have.

So the solution was a reprofiling that made the carriers *more* expensive by about £1.5bn. Top marks to whoever came up with that one. Short term savings, long term massive additional costs. Stupid.

The capability was way way over spec’d they were told it before it started but heads were in the sand and fingers in the ears, as reality is playing out that disconnect between ambition and reality has grown ever larger.

The cost of a smaller carrier that was of a useful size would not have been vastly dissimilar, driven by equipment and construction costs not by the size of the steel box.

If you don’t think the service chiefs were not up to there necks in the Cats and traps flip flip your out of your mind. You’d be lucky to find a politian that knows the difference.

No, I don't actually. Why inject massive additional risk into the programme to create a single part-time carrier with the other mothballed? Doesn't seem like a sensible military decision. Seems like one of Liam Fox's half-baked ideas. Unsurprisingly it died under Hammond, because it lost its champion.

No sdsr 2010 was fiscal reality. What your discribing is operational reality. That continues to be the MoD problem, capabilities were cut numbers were cut, readiness was cut. Your quite right in that commitments should be abandoned, instead of pretending there not I’m quite happy to do less with less. However the senior military and political leadership seem unable to admit it.

If the commitments aren't to be given up then the resources need to be made available to fulfil them. These are all choices politicians make. Prioritise A over B, X over Y. Which commitments? With what consequences? It's easy to say we'll do less but that may end up costing us in the long run. We withdrew from the Gulf officially in 1972 and we're dragged back 8 years later. It's not a simple option at all.

[jedibeeftrix]

Engaging strategy
If you don’t think the service chiefs were not up to there necks in the Cats and traps flip flip your out of your mind. You’d be lucky to find a politian that knows the difference.

No, I don't actually. Why inject massive additional risk into the programme to create a single part-time carrier with the other mothballed? Doesn't seem like a sensible military decision. Seems like one of Liam Fox's half-baked ideas. Unsurprisingly it died under Hammond, because it lost its champion.

I'm quite firmly of the belief that the cats-n-traps shenanigans was a deliberate wheeze that Fox allowed the RN to get away with (because it's what he wanted anyway):

Because despite the scale of the cuts in 2010 the politics of the defence review did not allow the gov't to contemplate a big drop in army numbers. This meant significant cuts to the navy wiping out carriers in their existing form, and in truth not permitting the acquisition of carriers in their future form. It was obvious to many* that cuts to army numbers were coming at some time in the near future, but the budget rigour necessiated by the coalition with the lib-dems (no friends of activist foreign policy), meant this temporary problem could not be fudged.

How does one preserve carrier strike in the face of this dilemma?

What one does is offer the 'cheaper' alternative of taking only one into service, while quitely robbing the FOAS budget line of £400m to help pay for the remaining cost.

Eighteen months later:
Army drops to 82,000 from 95,000.
Rumours that we may have other alternatives available over turning PoW into razer blades after we've paid for her.

Three years later still:
We keep both carriers using the non-FOAS capable F35b.
Was the £400m budget line returned to the airforce for the FOAS requirement...?

* https://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2010 ... necessary/

[MRCA]

Engaging strategy

It’s not political imposed delays it was the failure to live within there budget. Time and again the mod cannot do it. Time and again the mod will pack in programs without having enough headroom to cover cost growth. And guess what we’re here again!

‘So the solution was a reprofiling that made the carriers *more* expensive by about £1.5bn. Top marks to whoever came up with that one. Short term savings, long term massive additional costs. Stupid.”

Yeah because no one was willing to say right I’m stopping type 45 at 2 units, I’m not doing Helmand anymore ect ect.

That depends what your definition of useful size is, the Italians, Australians and spainish all have designed and built useful aviation ships, more capable that the invincibles and ocean that we’ve had, and they all were produced for 1-1.5b pounds each.

“No, I don't actually. Why inject massive additional risk into the programme to create a single part-time carrier with the other mothballed? Doesn't seem like a sensible military decision. ”

Because somebody had Hawkeye, larger longer ranged a/c dangled in front of them. Someone thought f35b was about to cancelled and someone wanted naval fastjet capability at any cost.


Then you give up the commitments it’s isnt hard it isn’t rocket science. There paid to make the tough decisions not duck them. We’re addicted to punching above our weight and being America’s special friend. We are a proud independent and successful country we don’t have to pretend we’re something we’re not.

[RetroSicotte]

Hey guys.

I'm as irked about the news as any. But this is the mine and hydro thread.

Topics getting too general now. Please consider taking it to the appropriate threads.

[shark bait]

Venari-85 is perhaps what we should be spending the type31 budget on. Can probably undertake the same martine security tasks as a type31 could, yet this is actually useful in that mcmv and survey are vital and growing tasks all over the world and we might actually be able to sell some of these.

I agree, merging T31 and HMC is a much stronger option than a patrol frigate.

Developing the T31 and MHC in isolation we run the risk of having lots of medium patrol vessels with no commonality,having the new Rivers, T31, and HMC all occupying a similar space.

Rumours in the Daily Mail that Scott may be sold.

I'm not putting too much faith in that article, but its a real basterd if true.

Maybe we're buying 2 more polar ships from CL to replace Protector and Scott

The RN can't be good at hunting subs if it doesn't know what the ocean looks (sounds?) like. HMS Scott is a hugely valuable piece of the puzzle.

[abc123]

So, HMS Quorn and HMS Atherstone will be decomissioned in December.




So, is anybody able to explain me the MoD/RN logic? To retire the youngest vessel ( commissioned in 1989 ) and in 1986 and leave in service ships from 1981?

[donald_of_tokyo]

So, HMS Quorn and HMS Atherstone will be decomissioned in December.
...
So, is anybody able to explain me the MoD/RN logic? To retire the youngest vessel ( commissioned in 1989 ) and in 1986 and leave in service ships from 1981?

From wiki both are "... lifted out of the water into the "Minor War Vessels Centre of Specialisation"; the former shipbuilding hall at HMNB Portsmouth in December 2016".

So, they were in-active for 10 months already.

What surprised me is they selected Hunt class to disband. I thought they are undergoing extensive upgrades, ready for new MCMV drone systems.

They are cutting Hunt from 8 to 6. So, Sundown from 7 to 6, as well?

[abc123]

So, HMS Quorn and HMS Atherstone will be decomissioned in December.
...
So, is anybody able to explain me the MoD/RN logic? To retire the youngest vessel ( commissioned in 1989 ) and in 1986 and leave in service ships from 1981?

From wiki both are "... lifted out of the water into the "Minor War Vessels Centre of Specialisation"; the former shipbuilding hall at HMNB Portsmouth in December 2016".

So, they were in-active for 10 months already.

What surprised me is they selected Hunt class to disband. I thought they are undergoing extensive upgrades, ready for new MCMV drone systems.

They are cutting Hunt from 8 to 6. So, Sundown from 7 to 6, as well?

Yeah, probably because they don't have the money to pay for refit...

[Repulse]

Pretty easy to sell onto the Baltic states also. I hope the government gets its are in gear and starts to plan replacements. 15 MHPC sloops to replace the MCMs, Echos and eventually the Rivers please - alongside 15 T31e's if we at truly going hi/lo

[marktigger]

keep and refit the hunts and get rid of 2 of the single role vessels use one to replace the training ship at raleigh and put that one back into service and remove another single role

[donald_of_tokyo]

keep and refit the hunts and get rid of 2 of the single role vessels use one to replace the training ship at raleigh and put that one back into service and remove another single role

I also thought this way will be nicer. But, it didn't go this way...

[abc123]

keep and refit the hunts and get rid of 2 of the single role vessels use one to replace the training ship at raleigh and put that one back into service and remove another single role

Agreed.

[Repulse]

Does seem odd- selling 2/3 Sandowns to the Baltic states to pay for the upgrades seems more sense.

[marktigger]

Does seem odd- selling 2/3 Sandowns to the Baltic states to pay for the upgrades seems more sense.

the hunt has better capacity for expansion

[Repulse]

Agreed....

[shark bait]

The only reason these are being scrapped is to provide crews for the new patrol vessels. That's why the bigger, more manpower intensive ships are the ones being scrapped. It is not because of any sound long term decision making.

[Gabriele]

Not even that. The SDSR 2015 said 3 MCM ships would go by 2025, and those were expected to be mostly or exclusively Sandowns.

Now the MCM ships to be lost are 5, with the 2 Hunt going because they were in for expensive refits. Easy cuts, "easy" money (but for what was already committed and cannot be recovered).