NickC wrote:...Speaking to IHS Jane’s in early 2015, Admiral Sir George Zambellas, the then First Sea Lord, was unequivocal in his belief that the high-end capability envisaged for the Type 26 frigates should not be downgraded for the GPFF: One of the siren calls I completely resist is to try and produce something that is not a credible platform, something that is smaller, cheaper, and less effective. He further argued: The other thing is you don’t have less credible platforms trying to protect major assets, nor do you try to put them into partnership with senior alliance partners. So if you’re protecting an American carrier or a French carrier it’s got to be credible. If you’re doing air defence, it’s got to be credible. And if you’re doing anti-submarine warfare, it’s got to be credible.
I read this before.
Quality and quantity, Sir Zambellas was arguing for BOTH. And simply, he lost the game. That's it. He was completely correct on saying what RN needs, but was not correct in vision to win the game. Anyway, as a fact, MOD did not get that money. In some sense, he was too optimistic.
Although it is not his fault, I really hoped if he sticked to
quality first, and then quantity. If so, now we should have had a plan for "10 T26", not "8 T26 and 5 T31e" (As I said, my favorite option is the former).
Actually, RN is now setting aside 2 escort because of lack of man-power, so "10 T26" has virtually no problem.
As I remember, then we were happily (optimistically) discussing about Vanator 110 or Spartan, and saying BAE proposing Cutlass (now Leander) and Avenger (River B3 like) as a bullshit. (Sometimes I push Cutlass as being cheap, but many here said it is tooo low specification). But, it turned out that BAE was correct. The budget is the key, no chance for Venator 110, and Spartan is further miles away than Venator. Actually, it was even cheaper than BAE thought, so that BAE abandoned the bid.
Even the pessimistic BAE was optimistic than reality.
# Interestingly Camell Laired stood up in place of BAE, and bid for Cutlass (now named Leander).
....
I might be wrong, but, I "feel" Sir John Parker's report destroyed many things. Surely he was too optimistic. What he said can be regarded as "quantity-first" than quality.
Optimism is very important to make things forward. But,
strategy must have a hidden solid basement, covered by optimistic outlook. If there is only the "optimistic outlook", it leads to disaster. I think this is very common sense, but not sure if it is common in RN/MOD.
If we assume at RN's current plan has a hidden solid basement, I think it is "8 T26". Therefore, I strongly propose to shift the key decision point of T31e
after SDSR 2020. This is critically important. If not, if SDSR 2020 needs something to cut, there are only three places to go, either cut "8 T26" or put PoW in reserve, or disband both "Albions".
I am more happy to cancel T31e than cutting these three.