SHAME.... HMS Invincible served the Royal Navy well.
Australia was interested at one point. I wonder where it will end up????

Pitty, why... Dont' they ahve enough money or are they making a new carrier...?

A stupid move to help pay for the Iraq war.

We're now left with the HMS Illustrious as the Ark Royal is undergoing (another) extensve refit. The two new carriers are expected in 2012 at the earliest.

Bad scheduling.

It's this Labour Government. They are determined to get value for money out of the armed forces and in my opinion, quite right too.

But, as one naval guy I know said, "How do you get value for money from old rustbuckets?"

I'm certain he was not referring to the old, antiquated ships our beloved RN has to put up with, but probably the crusty old sea dogs in the Admiralty!

Invisible has done this country proud and would have continued to do so, but I suppose it has had it's day. [Even the most ancient of US or Russian carriers would've been better than nothing!]

God only knows if Labour will actually purchase the 2 x £2.7B aircraft carriers - to be made in France. If Nelson were alive, he would be spinning in his grave!

Originally posted by fritz

God only knows if Labour will actually purchase the 2 x £2.7B aircraft carriers - to be made in France. If Nelson were alive, he would be spinning in his grave!

Fritz,

Apparently they're being built in the UK and the government is looking to share the cost with the French government (cos they're looking to replace their carriers) - something like the Eurofighter consortium and we all know what the french did there.....

But yeah its very poor scheduling by the government procurement agencies

Spacemunkey

The "Through Deck Cruisers" were never good value for money. Invincible may have earned her keep in the Falklands conflict, but they were always a compromise and a poor one at that. But I thank her for her service.

Of more interest is what the Navy is going to do with all these un-employed ratings. That's a lot of crew members to absorb into a force that has precious few ships as it is.

The new carriers are to be built in Glasgow by a subsidiary of Haliburton.

The contract was promised by Labour in order to keep a hold of the Glasgow Labour constituencies in the election.

Actually, according to a well known monthly military magazine for 'spotters', these carriers will be built in France and out fitted in Glasgow.

Not the point though, is it?! Point is that Invisible, together with her sister ships, did a magnificent job and the concept of 'through-deck' cruisers were all 'Blighty' could afford at that time.

I mean, poor old 'Bulwark' was kept afloat for simply ages and HMS
'Endurance', the arctic survey ship, is almost as old as me.

What I don't really understand as an Islander is, we are surrounded by water! Why don't we have a credible Navy?

The French to the south, the Belgians, Dutch, Germans, Vikings to the east, the Noggies and Swedes and slightly further, the Russians to the northeast.

To the north are the Icelandic warriors who we've had a fight with in the last 40 years but to the west is the US of A - with surely the most powerful fleets in the world.

Can we fight off an invader with a hotch-potch of 'Ro-Ro' car ferries, an ageing icebreaker and a few old flat tops?

How on earth can any government not maintain a navy. It does not really have to be a 'big' navy but a couple of dozen 'hunter/killer' subs, at least 3 'proper' aircraft carriers - 2 on patrol - 1 in for repairs, cruisers for aircraft carrier protection - oh yeah! Don't forget the destroyers to protect the cruisers and then my friends, lots of little missile armed jetfoils to patrol our coastline.

I don't think that's too much to ask for, do you?

We could pay for all that if, even now, we scrapped Eurofighter - bring back the Spit, did away with the proposed JSF and stopped all the waste of money in MOD.

Better yet, decommission all the old farts at MOD, get rid of General Mike Jackson - he only wants to keep the Paras - and get somebody in the chair who understands the Navy and it's proud traditions. We used to have an amazing Navy built of Oak - the proudest heart of our tiny Isalnd nation.

The new British carriers will NOT be built in France. They will be built in a number of yards around the UK and then the sections will all be moved to glasgow for final assembly. The goverment is currently in talks with the French government because they wish to built a non nuclear carrier to work with the CDG (they got scared of building another nuclear carrier after all the problems they had with CDG). The designs for our carriers are both flexable enough and of the right size for them to use. It is the designs the french are after, their carrier will be built in france and ours will be built here. It does however allow large savings to be made by purchasing equipment (e.g. engines, lifts etc) for all 3 carriers at the sae time. The carrier designs are made for the use of cats (even though the UK will not be using them yet) so it is easy enough to use rafelle's off the deck.

argh! dealing with those halliburton dogs! i'd rather france build it than them getting their grubby paws on the money

from what i have heard they got the job through some very flashy presentations to the MOD, rather than any experience at managing anything like this before. Some guys in the industry were fuming!!!!

Endurance is 15 years old.

HMS Bulwark was launched in 2001. The old Bulwark was a commissioned warship for 28 years, which is quite a while but not unheard of.

The strategic sea-lift capability of the RN is pretty good at the moment with 6 purpose built Point Class civilian operated ro-ro ships, in addition to those that might be taken up from trade. The RFA and the RN itself has a sea-lift capability in the form of Bay class landing ships, landing ship logistics, and assault ships all of which move 'stuff.' Securing access to large ammounts of civilian sea-lift capability is a problem at the moment as Britain's merchant marine isn't what it once was but all in all the UK's sealift is quite good.

Why on earth would the MOD allow themselves to be left with only one aircraft carrier? In the USN the USS Enterprise has been going strong since the Vietnam War and it's still in excellent shape. Such as shame that the Labour Party thinks that there is no need for a well defended nation.