The British military.
First from Think Defense on how some wish it to be...
Thank you everyone who commented, requested clarification and helped, I’m resubmitting with explanations, detail and the pound of flesh Jed demanded JRead the rest and especially the comments. Its quite entertaining.
So here goes
I’d start, with the “war fleet”, of which we would have two, each one “active” for 6 months of the year, or 8 months, or 4 months, or whatever else makes everyone happy.
Active would be “ready to at short notice go and beat some unfortunate foreigners to a bloody pulp”.
Inactive would be everything else, overhaul, training, diplomacy, exercises ect.
First Fleet Purchase Cost Operating Cost Carrier QE Class 3,700,000,000 400,000,00024 Fast Air Rafale 1,680,000,000 288,000,0006 Infantry landing ships Juan Carlos 2,940,000,000 600,000,00024 Heavy Lift Chinook 720,000,000 192,000,0006 Armour Landing Ship Bay Class 1,368,000,000 600,000,0006 AAW Destroyers T 45 Daring Class 3,900,000,000 420,000,0006 Light Helicopter Lynx 180,000,000 24,000,0006 ASW Frigates T46 4,500,000,000 420,000,0006 ASW Helicopter Merlin 180,000,000 48,000,0003 Guided Missile Cruiser T47 3,000,000,000 210,000,0005 SSGN / Deterrent Astute+ 15,000,000,000 900,000,000
The Carrier and fast air is I hope fairly self explanatory, shoot down enemy aircraft, possibly bomb enemy targets, provide close air support and reconnaissance.
It’s the QE class, because that’s what we have, and the Rafale, because I believe thatFranceandGermanyare about to have a massive falling out, and we’ll buy it hoping to influence French opinion in our favour.
I assume some sort of ISTAR platform will also arrive, hopefully not that silly Sea King, but have no real idea whether we will end up with the Hawkeye, something funky based on the V22 or something else entirely.
This will also function as the flag ship, to what extent that means anything anymore
The Amphibs, the reasoning behind numbers simply being so that the entire force could be landed in a single group. Well, obviously not quite, a single group, each ships group of four Chinook would need to make 5 trips to offload the ship “battalion” and even with 4 LCUs it would take 13 trips to deposit the 50 warriors of an armoured infantry battalion. But we’re talking 11 hours rather than the 11 days Sutton took, or so I hope. To my none military mind, that sounds like a smashing capability. I’m wedded to neither Bay nor Carlos, feel free to suggest better ships, or just assume they are better. I’d much prefer something with a much greater cargo handling capacity, but am open to a third heavy landing ship specifically to vomit ISO boxes onto a beach.
Why Chinook? Again, its that realism (lol) bit, I’d prefer a bigger lift, I’m sure that there is something bigger than the CH53-k planned in the long term, but we have Chinooks.
Now the British military as it really is from CDR. Salamander...
The 1,000 ship Navy that CDR. Salamander is talking about is the plan that the Western Navy's of the world could combine (in times of intense crisis) to form a 1,000 ship fleet.In any event - the Brits are walking a rather thin line methinks ....Royal Navy officers said HMS Westminster was “dangerously under-defended” when it was called on to patrol close to the Libyan port city of Benghazi in March.
The warship can carry 32 Seawolf and eight Harpoon missiles but it is understood that military cutbacks left the Westminster and its crew of 190 with only a fraction of that capability.As Seawolf missiles — which are used to intercept incoming missiles — are fired in pairs, sources said the Westminster had just two rounds to defend against missile attacks from Col Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.A hollow Navy defined. Nice E-Ticket part of the 1,000-ship Navy we have there.
Reality is far different from the wishful thinking that is posted on TD's website. From my view of things the Royal Navy will be lucky to equal our Coast Guard in size and firepower in a couple of years.
UPDATE & CLARIFICATION:
I need to make a couple of things clear.
1. Think Defense has guest writers on his blog and the views expressed in that article are from one of them.
2. The US is clearly on the same trajectory as Europe and the failed bipartisan committee illustrates the trouble that we are in.