Labour's secret plans to slash the Navy

Labour's secret plans to slash the Navy

www.telegraph.co.uk

The Ministry of Defence has produced a plan to decommission five warships from next April, which would reduce the Navy's capability to the level where it could carry out only "one small-scale operation".

(visit the link for the full news article)

If this story is true then it is both a disaster for our national defence and our naval ability as well. At a time when the world is becomeing more and more hostile and the threat's against our country are becoming greater we should be increasing our military capabilities not decreasing them and if this continues we will be soon in a worse situation than we were before WW2

www.telegraph.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by solidshot


If this story is true then it is both a disaster for our national defence and our naval ability as well. At a time when the world is becomeing more and more hostile and the threat's against our country are becoming greater we should be increasing our military capabilities not decreasing them and if this continues we will be soon in a worse situation than we were before WW2

i would like to drop in and just say, thre is a reaon for everything.
on the surface it may seem a downsize for the Navy, all the while it may be part of an even bigger upgrade you and i will not know of.

[edit on 30-9-2007 by omi_kron_gravitron]

The Telegraph is a paranoid right wing rag, which thinks Labour is trying to turn Britain into a one party state and is sleep walking us into a European super state.

Labour is planning huge upgrades in the Navy btw

this quote proves the article is pure bull

It has long been felt that the Socialist tendencies of this government, was that a defence capability was bad and against their principles.

Labour dropped socialism in the 80s. Looks like the Telegraph is being paranoid (again).

(We all know New Labour is more right wing than the Tories.)

[edit on 30-9-2007 by infinite]

I have to agree with the above reply...

The Telegraph is about as reliable as the Daily Mail on being unbiased about Labour govt policy decisions...

The fact is the UK is getting new aircraft carriers (which is the real demonstration of naval might - read your WWII history) and the boats being decomissioned are probably like 30 years old!!!

Plus... do you want taxes or gunboats? The whole point of having 21st military is that you scale down 19th & 20th centruty elements to make way for more efficient use of hard power...

just my 2 pence...

Q

Originally posted by Qoelet
I have to agree with the above reply...

The Telegraph is about as reliable as the Daily Mail on being unbiased about Labour govt policy decisions...

The fact is the UK is getting new aircraft carriers (which is the real demonstration of naval might - read your WWII history) and the boats being decomissioned are probably like 30 years old!!!

Plus... do you want taxes or gunboats? The whole point of having 21st military is that you scale down 19th & 20th centruty elements to make way for more efficient use of hard power...

just my 2 pence...

Q

I would prefer to still have a navy and not a coastal defence force....

5 less warships may mean the upgrades planned do into force....but I say may because this would not be the first time a government has said it will do one thing and done another. I guess the labour government still hasnt learned that if we want force projection without the US we'll need a navy, not a pidly little nice looking coastal defence force.

This might be an EU thing.

There is now a European wide coastguard being created (Tories did support the measure). Might be seeing a joint EU navy, Britain and France have signed an agreement to build joint carriers.

Who know's.

Airc raft Carriers: What's the status of the Anglo-Franco project?

As the British government wants its shipbuilding industry to begin to restructure before it awards the future aircraft carrier (CVF) contract, British yards are looking to benefit from whatever experience the French have acquired in production processes. “We have offered to make our know-how available if British shipyards adopt our production standards and methods,” says one French industry source.

In exchange, Britain has agreed to design changes that accommodate French requirements, including provision for larger ammunition storage holds, including special secure storage areas for nuclear weapons, and for hull anti-roll stabilizers, which will not be fitted to the British ships.

[edit on 30-9-2007 by infinite]

Originally posted by Qoelet
The fact is the UK is getting new aircraft carriers (which is the real demonstration of naval might - read your WWII history) and the boats being decomissioned are probably like 30 years old!!!

They may be getting new aircraft carrier's but the number is going from 3 down to two, so if you take into account refit's/ the possibility that one could be damaged in combat there is the possibility that we could be severly short of carrier's when/if one of the above were to happen.

Then there is the total removal of minesweeper's/patrol boat's how would we even move our fleet's into area's like the gulf which could easily be mined if we have removed one of main mean's of dealing with the threat?

Added to this if you take into account that we need ship's to patrol our own coastline how would we ever respond to another attack on our territories ( like the falklands) again?

I heard they are getting rid of one of the current carriers, 1 more is being mothballed and only 1 is in service and in addition that the Royal Navy is being slashed in HALF.

I truly cannot believe that the 2nd most powerful nation in the world is this stupid. You guys have to make some changes and FAST or else one day you will wake up and the UK will be on par with some random African nation in terms of military force.

Originally posted by ChrisF231
I heard they are getting rid of one of the current carriers, 1 more is being mothballed and only 1 is in service and in addition that the Royal Navy is being slashed in HALF.

They are going to reduce the total number of carrier's by one iirc? but we should then have the two new carrier's both in service but as i said above if one were to go for a refit or be damaged in combat then we would have serious problem's

reply to post by ChrisF231


The current situation is that of the Royal Navy's 3 aircraft carriers, one is mothballed, one is in port undergoing resupply/repair and another is out at sea. The two new aircraft carriers have a much larger capacity and capabilities than the three we have now (our present ones have a displacement of 20,600 tonnes - the new ones will have a displacement of 65,000 tonnes, not to mention the modern planes and equipment).

As for the Royal Navy being cut by half, this was a tabloid tale that turned out to be bogus. I also urge you to read the article itself: It says the Ministry of Defence has drawn up a plan to cut five ships. It doesn't say they're planning to enact it or are actually enacting it. The civil servants in the MoD have a tendency to leak like a sieve (often with misleading info) when the Treasury does something they disagree with. We'll have to wait and see, but the state of the armed forces is an issue that a surprising number of voters take seriously: you'll recall the outcries over medical treatment for soldiers injured in Iraq/Afghanistan or over military accommodation, for instance.

But anyway, there's an easy solution to save the Royal Navy any cuts at all: Scrap ID cards. Save £5.5billion (plus the running costs each year), protect civil liberties and pay off the aircraft carriers - the Navy doesn't even have to consider cuts, and it leaves you £2billion or so to play around with.

Besides, there is one simple fact staring everyone right in the face: We live on the British Isles, i.e. a collection of islands. A decent navy is not merely a desire but a necessity in our situation, given the huge proportion of essential imports and exports that enter and leave the UK each year (let alone the expeditionary operations we undertake). Without the ability to defend the sea lanes, Britain could be starved into submission just like the Germans tried to do during the Second World War and it would be impossible to continue missions in Afghanistan and Iraq without naval support - flying resources out there would take too long because a ship can hold hundreds (if not thousands) of times more cargo than a plane.

I gave both devilwasp and ste2652 a star next to their posts. Thank god we have someone in here who can tell all us non military experts how it is with regards to our military.

Lets hope this story is not true. Can you imagine how vunreable it would make these Islands. Why would they want to reduce the Navy anyways with what is happening in the world today?

Tell ya what if they want to reduce funding or costs, cut back on the trident and use that money to keep the RN as it is.


[edit on 30-9-2007 by spencerjohnstone]

They should of learned from past mistakes

Margret thatcher was doing the same thing in her years in office and right before she liquidated the bulk of the navy the falkins happened , if the Argentinians had waited a few more months the English would of lost the falkins

Xinhau News are covering this as well.

Link

But its basically a rehash of the Telegraph article.

I've also been looking on the MoD's news website for anything relating to Navy spending or UK strategic doctrine for the next few years. As of yet, no luck. However, I do find this story strange, when you consider the money being spent on updating the Trident deterrent force. It would leave very few options for naval commanders in responding to threats. On the other hand, maybe the problems are because of the money being spent on things like Trident. In which case I am with Ste2652 - dump ID cards instead!

reply to post by Disgustipated


That's very true. The Thatcher government were considering some pretty deep cuts to the UK's defence budget - with Navy bearing the brunt - when the Falkland Islands were invaded. The Royal Navy in particular used the crisis to demonstrate how essential they were (since it's likely that Thatcher would have been finished politically had she not won back the Falklands, and the Royal Navy was essential to the victory) and saved themselves from the chop as it were. Indeed, the Chief of the Naval Staff (Admiral Henry Leach) saw the Falklands as his big chance to save the navy he'd served with all his life, and was instrumental in convincing Thatcher that it could be done (let's face it, fighting a war at sea 8,000 miles away from home with little-to-no major support from anyone else is a very, very tough thing to do... especially given that the people you're fighting are only a few hundred miles away from the battles).

Had the Argentinians waited another year or so, or had the cuts gone ahead earlier, it's not clear whether Britain could have even mounted a sufficient task force to send at all, let alone enough to win. In my opinion the Falklands should be a benchmark in our naval strength - governments must ensure that the Royal Navy is capable of at least mounting an operation similar to that of 1982 with no military support from any other nation. If that's not possible, then the navy is unacceptably weak. Remember, we fourteen overseas territories to defend (including the Falklands) - how can we fulfil our obligations without a strong and modern Royal Navy?

One would think that the Treasury wouldn't even consider cuts to the Navy given how important they (and the rest of our armed forces) have been in the past; history repeats itself, after all.

[edit on 30/9/07 by Ste2652]