Defence review: HMS Ark Royal to be scrapped

The Royal Navy's flagship, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, is to be scrapped early as part of the government's defence review, the BBC has learned.

www.bbc.co.uk...

What the F is going on in the UK these days? I have heard that, in addition to this, the whole of the Tornado fleet is to be scrapped, no new Nimrods and Kinloss and Lossiemouth are to close. To add injury to insult, I also hear that the Armed Forces Acadamy is not to go ahead at St. Athan.

I get the impression that the UK will be totally incapable of defending itself. It certainly could not sustain another Falklands campaign, that is for sure.
The British Services of my time, late seventies through to the late ninties was in a far better shape. Today, it is a joke. I feel sorry for my two boys, who are currently serving. I really fear for their safety. The government is stitching the Country up.

reply to post by TheLoneArcher


Its part of their defense budget realignment as well as their modernization program.

Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carrier

The Queen Elizabeth class (formerly the CV Future[nb 1] or CVF project) is a two-ship class of aircraft carrier being built for the Royal Navy. HMS Queen Elizabeth is expected to enter service in late 2015 and HMS Prince of Wales in 2018.[1] The vessels will displace about 65,600 tonnes (full load), be 284 metres (932 ft) long and capable of carrying up to 50 aircraft.

Its possible they might scrap one of the newer aircraft carriers, going with just one. The Queen Elizabeth class is in par with the American Nimitz Class Super carrier - displacing 65,000 tons, catapult / Electromagnetic launch system, with the F-35 naval versions.

They are also in talks with France about using each others aircraft carriers interchangeably in the respective navies in what pretty much is a merging of the naval national defense. If France's carrier is out of service, the British carrier will be used, and vice versa.

The US is pushing Britain to no scrap the new carriers, as the US/UK have a joint naval endeavor, where each others aircraft carriers can slot into each others navies.

With the new British Government, some of these topics might be dropped, delayed pending review, etc.

I honestly think that we are making so many defence cuts to save the troubles what are happening around other parts of europe due to their cuts. Cameron knows we can afford these defence cuts because the US would be there to help if need be. Im not sure its the right choice to take though, relations with the US arent what they used to be.

It'll be a sad day when the Ark Royal gets decommisioned.

Originally posted by Catch_a_Fire
I honestly think that we are making so many defence cuts to save the troubles what are happening around other parts of europe due to their cuts. Cameron knows we can afford these defence cuts because the US would be there to help if need be. Im not sure its the right choice to take though, relations with the US arent what they used to be.

It'll be a sad day when the Ark Royal gets decommisioned.

edit on 19/10/2010 by Catch_a_Fire because: (no reason given)

Britain and the United States will always be friends beyond the ally title. Personaly though I think Great Britain needs to bring Margaret Thatcher out of retirement.

reply to post by Catch_a_Fire


We should never put ourselves in the situation where we rely on anyone for our self defence.

I understand that it is a strategic review. However, in my opinion, it is leaving the UK wide open. Our air defence capability is almost non existant. I know that we are not, at the moment, facing a cold war style adversary. However, who is to say that will not change, and how quickly will the UK be able to adapt to meet such a threat after this reveiw, or even now? I say that we would not be able. The UK defence forces will not be able to repel any determined attack on soveriegn soil. The UK armed forces are now deigned to fight foriegn tatical theatre operations, and that is about it. Gone are the days when we could launch Vulcans, Lightnings, and various other aircraft to meet our foes. Our armed forces are a shadow of the past and that shadow is fading into the gloom.

Yes, we need to save money and reduce the deficit, but there must also be some balance. Yes, we have the US and yes we have NATO; but no, we have no standing army that can hold its own against a modern enemy.

What a travesty. The pride of the royal navy scrapped because of the criminal bankers and their theft of the UK's wealth.

What a sad day indeed to see the Royal Navy being treated in this way. It's existence was always an encouragement to me and a symbol that even though the empire was gone, Britain was still there and still an active player.

There is no justice in this world seeing the sun set on the UK because of the actions of so few and I don't think I will like a world where the UK's presence is so diminished.

reply to post by Freeborn


I completely agree with this statement, but i cant think of any other reason why we would leave ourselves wide open. One of the big advantages of the UK is that there are a lot of other countries, even without the US, that would strive to help us should the need arise. David Cameron knows this and is wet enough behind the ears to take this risk and save troubles on home soil.

He needs to keep face at the minute and troubles like what we're seeing abroad would put a big strain on his 'coalition' government.

Originally posted by TheLoneArcher
The Royal Navy's flagship, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, is to be scrapped early as part of the government's defence review, the BBC has learned.

www.bbc.co.uk...

What the F is going on in the UK these days?

Ark Royal was going to be scrapped anyway. It's not even a proper carrier, but a modified Cruiser. Personally, I think both of the remaining Invincibles should be refit as Helicopter carriers, but I digress.

Originally posted by TheLoneArcher
I have heard that, in addition to this, the whole of the Tornado fleet is to be scrapped,

Tornado is outdated and quite useless, to be honest. But they are not scrapping them either.

Originally posted by TheLoneArcher
no new Nimrods and Kinloss and Lossiemouth are to close.

Well, the Scots are probably going to have a referendum on "independance" anyway, so I won't cry for them. I haven't heard of any cuts to Nimrod though, I thought they are in the middle of a refurb.

Originally posted by TheLoneArcher
To add injury to insult, I also hear that the Armed Forces Acadamy is not to go ahead at St. Athan.

Good, it was massively overpriced anyway at around £6 Billion. For an Academy? Someone got fleeced when they asked for a quote there, which is kind of the whole point really. All this defence procurement under Labour was spending money like it didn't matter and not actually getting things at true value. BAe and Thales must have been laughing all the way to the bank.

I actually here they are just scaling back the academy plans anyway, not scrapping them.

Originally posted by TheLoneArcher
I get the impression that the UK will be totally incapable of defending itself. It certainly could not sustain another Falklands campaign, that is for sure.

We could, actually. Quite easily in fact. In 1982, we got ships out of mothball and refit en route. If you go down to Portsmouth, you will see dozens of old ships, inclduing Invincible herself, sitting in mothball and every one of them could be reactivated.

Originally posted by TheLoneArcher
The British Services of my time, late seventies through to the late ninties was in a far better shape. Today, it is a joke. I feel sorry for my two boys, who are currently serving. I really fear for their safety. The government is stitching the Country up.

What? Late 70's in better shape? Why do you think Argentina thought they could take a punt? The UK Armed forces are much better equipped now than they ever were, it's just the MoD has been spending money willy-nilly without though as to what is good value. The story is the same all over Whitehall.

Scottish independence is only supported by about a quarter of the population. Ditto with Bermuda independence.

This is a sad day, a very sad day. I never thought I would see the day when the greatest military on Earth was castrated by a band of inept politicians. Why not reduce foreign aid? Why not reduce the pay and benefits of politicians? Why must the Europeans always gut their national defense?

I also hear that the Gurkhas are on the chopping block as well.

Why do we need big shiny new carriers anyway? They are nothing to do with "Defence" but are a way of projecting power over a long distance, offensively. A bit like our current deployment to Afghanistan, purely offensive in nature and nothing to do with defending the UK or it's people.

See, this is the big problem I see with the way defence is talked about. Defence is meant to be all about protecting yourself in your home or home nation, NOT projecting power thousands of miles away against a bunch of goat herders, that the big corporations want eradicated to make way for pipelines and development.

reply to post by Britguy


Good point. Why are we so obsessed with defending military spending, yet we dont care about universities , schools and hospitals. What we are seeing is the military industrial complex having too much influence over the decisions made.

The threats highlighted yesterday in the threats review, were cyber terrorism and jihadi style terrorism.

Fighter Jets, tanks aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons, all useless to tactical these new threats to our country.

Originally posted by ChrisF231
Scottish independence is only supported by about a quarter of the population. Ditto with Bermuda independence.

it all depends who turns out to vote on the day though. Granted, opinion polls suggest the SNP would lsoe any referendum badly, but moods can chang, especially if the SNP spin these defence cuts as "unfair to Scotland", as they claim everything is.

Originally posted by ChrisF231
This is a sad day, a very sad day. I never thought I would see the day when the greatest military on Earth was castrated by a band of inept politicians. Why not reduce foreign aid? Why not reduce the pay and benefits of politicians? Why must the Europeans always gut their national defense?

We're still well within the NATO target of 2% GDP spend on defence and I would hardly say the British Military has been gutted. The politicians which are inept are the bunch of Labour spendaholics we just booted out. The Tories have a track record for being fiscally sound and usually are very pro-defence. I don't think this SDR is as bad as was feared, to be honest.

Originally posted by ChrisF231
I also hear that the Gurkhas are on the chopping block as well.

News to me, not seen or heard a thing about that and most of the Army cust will come from the Armoured Divisions in Germany, not infantry units (and good ones at that) like the Gurkhas.

reply to post by TheLoneArcher


many thanks for strating this thread..

they seemed to think that we will never have `old school ` war scenarios ever again.....it is all about the new types of war....personally i think they are so wrong....everyone else is building up their forces,,,esp naval forces...but we are cutting ours.....there are plenty of ways to cut excess spending in defence without cutting the arm off !!

thanks

snoopyuk

Britain and the United States will always be friends beyond the ally title. Personaly though I think Great Britain needs to bring Margaret Thatcher out of retirement.


It's that kind of talk that's going to get you a spanked bottom my Tory Friend, Thatcher, is and was, in short, and it's difficult to describe this woman, and I use the term woman loosely, without me swearing a lot, but she is a word that rhymes with HUNT and begins with the letter C. Anyway Thatch is soooooo Old now that all she does is deficate in her Sloggis hardly leadership material.

I can't wait till she's dead so I can dance on her grave

This is absolutely disgraceful, and has made me so angry. We need to stop funding the AIDS infested african and asian banana republics.

Originally posted by stumason

Originally posted by ChrisF231
I also hear that the Gurkhas are on the chopping block as well.

News to me, not seen or heard a thing about that and most of the Army cust will come from the Armoured Divisions in Germany, not infantry units (and good ones at that) like the Gurkhas.

Patrick Mercer predicted it about 6 weeks ago when quized about units to be culled. He stated that the most likely units to go initially would be Gurkhas as the have become too expensive to run due to the increased pay and pension rights they recently gained. Quite ironic that the campaign to increase their rights may actually be the cause of their disbandment.

I suppose it is all just speculation at the minute. We'll know more following the official SDSR being released tomorrow.

reply to post by Xcathdra


Thatcher was / is an evil, evil woman who systematically ripped Bitish society apart and turned brother against brother all to earn her toff backers even more money than they were already making.
Despite what many would have you believe we are still paying the price for her policies.

And you may not be aware that Thatcher herself had a Defence spending review planned prior to the Agentinian invasion of The Falklands which was expected to announce even more drastic cuts than those announced today.
She promptly did an about turn, ( 'this Ladies not for turning' my arse!, she would do anything if it got her re-elected or turned a profit for those that ran her!) and became the defender of our Armed Forces.

The last Defence Review conducted under Tory government resulted in approximately 260,000 Armed Forces and related job losses!

The Tories are not the great supporters of our Armed Forces they and MSM would have you believe.

Whilst I accept there has been gross wasteage and serial mis-management, under numerous administations, I would still rather be over protected than pay the possible consequences for being under funded and defended.

reply to post by Freeborn


I know this thread isn't about Thatcher, but you have to accept the miners and the Unions brought it upon themselves. They demanded ever increasing wages for an ever decreasingly valuable commodity. We litterally had piles of coal sat around, we were over-producing so much. I personally think her breaking the Unions like she did was a good thing. I do accept though that the methods employed and the hurt caused during the period were shameful. It would have been nice if both sides hadn't been so beligerent.

As for this SDR, I still dont think it is as bad as the media has made out. Yes, we might be losing 5 surface ships, but we are getting the full 6 Type 45's, 7 Astutes and both Carriers. We keep the Tornadoes for a bit longer, we're going to replace the current stock of Frigates with a new design (already in the works anyway) and we have smaller, more mobile IFV's on order to replace the Warriors. They are also modular, so can be reconfigured for different ops and cheaper.

The fact the carriers have no planes is nothing to do with the SDR but due to the previous Administration having them delivered years apart and also ordering the more complex and expensive VSTOL version of the F-35 when we could have simply gone for the catapult (the UK is the worlds leader in EM catapult design BTW) and had the normal version, which will be ready much sooner.

I think that is probably what we'll go for anyway, as rumours have it at least one of the carriers will be refitted for catapult/arrestor operations.

In all, it's sad we have to make cuts, but it is necessary. In 10 years tiome things may be different and we might be looking at an increased military budget, you never know...

reply to post by Britguy


To protect our interests abroad (what little we have) and as insurance.

The 'unthinkable' has a habit of becoming the 'unavoidable' without warning.

An island nation which is self sufficient in practically nothing cannot afford a 'pull up the drawbridge' mentality unless you like to be cold and hungry.