Moved across. I would add in first Priority 0 as short term, highest prioritity investment in RN & RFA Crew annual pay and bonuses, plus investment in property & accomidation - without extra money to improve crew recruitment and retention, we are going to struggle to man the equipment we al...

These OPV+ are definitely NOT an escort but would in themsrlves be freeing up more escorts to do higher intensity warfighting escort missions rather than being sidetracked to cover OPV / HADR missions that escorts are today being sidetracked to. Which escorts are currently being side tracked to cov...

It’s a question of priorities: 1- More P8, ideally increase to 16 2- Maximise T31 and build 8 3- More SSN, aim for 12, start asap 4- More T26 only if HMG commits to 3% GDP 5- T32 but not before mid/late 2030s In that order IMO In a perfect world the optimum escort mix is: • 12x AAW Destroyers (T45/...

Its the sort of sized shipd that H&W Appledore should be able to specialise it as many nations need Littoral Patrol Vessels for fishery protection, Border Control, coastguard, anti-drug amuggling etc. Especially if (similar to the previous Sea class of boats) they were aimed at having common con...

Because they are the artic and mountain warfare lead units Due to fact that NATO had a tiny land border in the Arctic. Now that Sweden and Finland have joined the majority of the land mass in the JEF region is in the Arctic or Sub-Arctic. If the Army isn’t willing to get persistently involved in th...

OK 3 Cdo and 29 RA Cdo could do with few GBAD Vikings No argument. My point is: If the Army is concentrating of the JEF region and leaving the large land armies to continental Europe, how many Vikings will the British Army need? 5 of the JEF nations are in continental Europe. I know but deploying B...

Absolutely this, which is why talking about the need for the UK to provide and sustain armoured divisions is a complete waste of resources. Also, it is at the core of what the FCF / UK expeditionary capabilities need to look like. Agreed. It was previously pretty clear what UK RM Commandos, along w...

….in the Nordics then a forward based brigade, and home a trained and scalable land army to defend the UK and it’s BOTs. Devils in the detail. IMO a proportionate and sustainable posture would be a permanently deployed British Army Artic/Mountain Brigade at Bardufoss and 3x Battlegroups split betwe...

E.g. I gather we have contractually have to pay for all 5*E7 Wedgetail radar systems. If true it is even more short sighted that UK MOD is only going ahead with 3*E7 Wedgetails to save money. If The Idiot does win Republican nominations and then the 2024 US Presidency elections, and then goes ahead ...

Whethet it ends up being UK SDR 24 or 25, the Armed Forces need to consider target audiences. If it was the Tory bunch of bankers (pun half intended) i.e. MOST UNLIKELY as of early March 2024 and current opinion polls, then it would need to be PowerPoint presentation with small packets of data in bi...

Another £120m to keep the lights on. https://www.insidermedia.com/news/ireland/harland-wolff-wins-preferred-bidder-status-for-falklands-project https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/1764920946123481514 If H&W can keep on chipping away with small but profitable contracts, then it makes them les...

When I was younger I seem to recall in those days pre-interent and pre-mobile phone that would be waiting for news from either Vatican for election of new Pope or Kremlin for choice of new Soviet Preseident by analysis of smoke signals, in the former case literal and for the latter case somewhat mor...

I would like to re-arrange the superstructure a bit fatter and shorter. This will enable second heli-pad at the bow, and make the hangar capable of 2 Merlin (or 1 Merlin + 4-6 UAVs, or 4 Wildcats). What would be the advantage over a more traditional design such as a Vard 7 313 if a MALE STOL drone ...

Now - what was I saying about a UK Dokdo look-alike? These smaller assault ships share vehicle and aircraft storage space so total capacity is much lower. This makes a LCAC that can interface with strategic sea lift ships important to pick up the missing capacity in a SHTF situation. Given that the...

3 weeks in hospital, whilst I tried to keep up reading threads with the briefest of replies when I had signal and/or battery and then a hurricane is directed at the Current & Future Escorts thread. And the cause at core of hurricane is OPV??!!

I think the latter must be the CIC itself, the longer endurance, higher speed, LCVP replacement. Agreed. If I had nt mentioned then my mistake, and that was only because I was trying to avoid repeating large chunks of text verbatim. A CIC feels well suited to Norwegian Fjords and Baltic and North S...

Yes the Maintenance and training would run alongside the 3 on 3 off Yes the 4 EoS would deploy out Oman As said I would have them fitted out with 40 mushroom CAMM and 8 x NSM in the first place I don't see this as light but it keeps them simple Would they be allowed to operate out of Oman to suppor...

An apparent candidate is, SEA class 15 boat (15m long and 21t weight) shall be a candidate. https://www.atlas-elektronik.com/fileadmin/user_upload/01_Images/Solutions/Workboats/SEA_Class_15_Officer_Training_Boat_Workboat_Data_Sheet.pdf I understand it can be "adopted" to be an USV, using ...

The German shill still at it I see. What is your suggestion M- Shorad for Boxer infantry Battalions? Don't mean that in a critical way, simple curiosity? If an UK Infantry Battalion is being depleyed, potentially by air to Poland or Estonia to rapidly deploy as deterrance, makes sense to me to incl...

Don't be silly we all know how useful fast attack boats would be in the Baltic for inserting SF teams and hitting coastal targets Plus it is clear there is move by the RN in the direction as the Archer class have deployed into the Baltic for the last 4 years What will be their future role? Could th...

4 x 30mm mounts…. Thats not enough anymore. It’s needs to be 40mm or 57mm now. If QE was Italian it would be covered in 76mm OTO Melara’s and rightly so. Unfortunately the chronic underarming to save cash is coming back to bite in a big way now. It was always just a matter of time. The key thing fo...

I was hopeful that firstly Australia developed their globaĺ MQ28 Ghost Bat UAV and that secondly happy to do deal on Project Tempest.

MK 41 vertical launch system along with ExLS (Exstensible Launching System) https://apple.news/A2eA4cRzqSeCDcY7bh_u8ug Great info. As RN has not ordered Mk41 in any sense by now, this means the T31 of RN will be (at least) at the first step be delivered WITHOUT Mk.41 VLS (which is clear from schedu...

SW1 wrote: ↑29 Jan 2024, 21:15 They’ve been there 2 months and used probably 8 missiles and been to port at least once. They’ve at least 40 left if they haven’t reloaded. They’ve a few other ships with them how much

I wanted more resilience than clearly you do. But thats ok - these are just are respective opinions, not facts.

That’s probably sadly fair, but for a project that should be low risk for a ship FFBNW the country needs to do better - if we are really so close to war, we need a new mindset. TLAM on ships maybe new for the RN but is not new with our closest ally. Thanks, I am NOT AGAINST adding Mk 41 to T45. But...