Yes we have manpower shortages now and are struggling with funding. I am looking 30+ years forward with what I think the Royal navy should be aiming at, having an escort fleet built around variants of the T-26 design. The UK needs to play the long game with its warship building capacity and capability, there are no quick fixes. This is the issue I have with not having a T-31e with growth potential throughout its 20 odd year service life. With a larger platform we will still have the option of selling them off in around 10 years but we will also have the option to improve them if we see fit.jedibeeftrix wrote:In what universe do we aspire to operate a fleet of 20-24 T26 variants? At a billion pound a pop and soaking up 180 bodies in a basic crew. We can't even man the 19 escorts we have now!
Yes it will take investment form both Government and Industry to get things to where they need to be, and we can always keep things the way they are where The Royal Navy with be incapable of conducting missions in any sort of effective manner by the 2050 as our capacity to build warships will be such that they are nearly unaffordable, and we have a woefully small pool of skilled personnel to build the damned things. Without multi year funding of large complex programmes like warships, industry will not be willing to invest its own money. Lack of orders will probably reduce the UK to one yard period and have barely enough UK based companies in the supply chain to actually have a sovereign warship building capability.
SO I have tried to suggest a way that things could be turned around and put on a reasonable footing over a period of time. Will it happen, probably not. Should it happen, yes is we want to have a Navy worth having.