There is a lot more going on at RAF Northolt than just 32 Sqn and in real terms 32 Sqn is cheap and flexible unit with its 146,s they are doing a lot of good work at this time that is not talked about

that was a good rant feel better

However if the plan changes again now and hulls 9 & 10 were added there price will go up and maybe that of the other 8 as well as BAE would have to re-plan there program so on and so on look what happened with the carriers remember the ramp no ramp and ramp again and the cost of that. Anything c...

well that covers most of it as lord West said just a few days ago defence dose not win votes and as I said until HMG stops their playground messing about nothing will change it is time for HMG to grow up stick their hand down their shorts and if they find anything get a grip

what I think is that the next two class of escort ships i.e type 26 & 31 will be built and that the UK needs to just make the best of a bad job and look forward to what next in the form of the type 45 replacement and try to get it right and to this end they need to be thinking long term in as mu...

I have to say I am a little confused are people saying that MHPC should be based on a 4000 t T-31 hull

For me there are two things going on here firstly with kit like SSM I think the RN is taking a gamble and trying to box clever in as much that they don't buy a SSM system but keep one in mind and if needed push for it under UOR this will only work if the ships are ready to take a system. Secondly th...

Cut India's aid at will give the UK an extra 150 million a year plumb this into the type 31 project to give a budget of 400 million plus ported kit per ship this would help make it a good step more capable

When we talk about a ASW - MHPC what are we expecting is it one hull type fitted out to carry out different tasks or one hull doing all the tasks.

So i have playing around with the idea of a more independent overseas territories and I think if the UK was to build and supply something like a modern day Jaguar class fast patrol boat 40 m in length with a range of 1000 nm at 30kts and top speed of 40kts with a crew of 10 plus a boarding party as ...

I fear as so many others do is that any short term drop in hull numbers will become full time cuts in hull numbers across the fleet this goes for MCM and so on

I also would have liked to have seen a 4 ship corvette class in place of the batch 2 rivers but my guess is we would have ended up with 14 escorts and 4 corvette's.

They couldn't, because there was no suitable existing design available.

And to my mind this is why the UK export market for ship building is not working. I would have expected a company like BAE to have a back fill project like Cutlass on the go if only as a project for apprentice as an exercise

Been said a number of times However I think that BAE should test out something like ST 2400 tow array sonar on a batch 2 river as it is able to be fitted to smaller ships and even if the UK don't want it it could be something other Batch 2 operators might take up. also it could workout a cheap way o...

SKB wrote:

Watch how low this Spitfire gets to the presenter!

I was there the day Ray did this I was ground crew for the MK XVI TE184. also check out Ray flying under the bridge in A Peace of Cake

great pic some real gems also great to see she has a escort in HMS Somerset good to see the RN starting as they mean to go on

swap out the 20mm CIW with a SeaRam same mount and more punch and the 57mm can do CIW as well but looks good for flag waving

As we have seen you can spend the money and still end up with turd so I happy to wait and see. A big budget dose not make a good ship it only helps to make a good ship. The French are in the same bout to a point i.e they ordered 11 FREMM and then cut the order 8 the same as type 26 order in fact the...

until we know what we are getting i.e BAE Cutlass - Arrowhead 120 or something else and what is fitted to them how are they a joke I agree it is a hard job for the money but until we know what is being ported over and the design of the ship we are in the dark. Once we see the winning bid and what we...

I have to say it is incredible in this day of age they have seemed to have got it so wrong. As for the UK we will have to see what happens with the type 26/31 projects. Lets hope the lessons of the type 45 have learnt.

The big thing here is that once we lose hulls that is it we will not get them back as for man power that will ease a little with the new ships with type 23 company= 185 type 26 =135 & type 31= 100. It wont matter if we have 8 or 13 manned frigates if HMG wont fund them going to sea we also need ...

The Falkland island defence force is a good model for the Larger OST's self funding to the tune of £400,000 around 200 in number with a falll time RM instructor. however the UK should fund such things as Boats and a MPA and a full time 5 man RM training team. to this end I would say the UK should fu...

Type 31 is getting a bit of a kick in there which at this time is based on nothing more than guess work as said we don't know what is going to be ported over form the Type 23's and at what cost. the possible kit that could be ported has a value of somewhere between 50 million and 80 million that has...

I find this statement of interest " The Department should be aware that we will not accept an abdication of accountability by Ministers " This in reference to the fact that HMG set unrealistic budgets and man power levels and then try to pass over accountability of a cut to the head of ser...

Would the Uk be in better place now if in 2004 instead of going for the 2 big carriers we went for 4 or 5 enlarged Ocean class carriers say with a deck that was 230m x 50m able to carry up to 40 aircraft maxed out 30 normal ops with a top speed of say 25 kts able to carry 400 troops 700 in overload ...