HMS Daring removed from active service to become harbour training ship due to manning issues

I just cannot believe how bad the situation is. Just 6 escorts available and 2 of those need to be with QE. I just cannot fathom how the MOD believe this is enough and why they think headlines like this do not adversely affect recruitment and retention. We have OPVs and survey vessels filling in for escorts while assets like Daring and Lancaster just sit around. Absolute joke.

We spend £1bn on a warship then use her as a harbour training ship, we must best a very rich nation to be able to afford this either that for a very stupid one.

Plenty of people want to still join however age limits need looked at I’m 42 and still willing and able I was ex army don’t see why I can join up I’m still fit and in my prime maybe the age limit need addressed

Reading the savethenavy.org document we have only 6 ships available or on operations, 6 on trials, training or under going short term maintenance work, 4 in major refit and 3 non operational.

I knew it was bad, but is a national scandal.

Rule Britannia?

The shoestring that we have run our services on for years has now snapped.

A long running farce of westend standards. This needs addressed and quickly the D class (for disaster) shows tge state of the fleet. So called state of the art ships are emphasis on STATE.

Its not manning its ships not worth ££ spent or up to the job.

I took redundancy in ’96, because they invented “Lean manning”.
Endless 9 month deployments, no shore posting, leave canceled, constant watchkeeping with no day work rotation. Glad I left, as a Tiff I very quickly became a Class 1(as was) Chief Engineer in the Merchant (less than two years) earning three times as much and never being away more than three months.

All the above is certainly true but the problem is compounded by the deployment pattern. Escorts are sent off to train with the Romanians, to the Indian Ocean and to every last exercise. Times have changed. Now there is an aircraft carrier to defend. Existing escorts should increasingly be focused on escorting HMS Queen Elizabeth.

Let’s not even talk about Dragon…

The government need to wake up and fast. It is only a matter of time until we need a powerfull naval response and we will not be able to mount one.
For gods sake Fallon and May get building ships and quickly. We need one type 26 built every year, the order needs to go back up to 13 ships. Then we need at least 8 ideally 10 type 31s.
In the meantime armed forces salaries like those of key public sector workers have been wallowing below inflation since 2008. Most public sector workers are 14%-18% worse off now than they were in 2008.
immediate steps to resolve this issue. Increase RN manpower by the 3-5000 wanted before SDSR 2015 the navy only got 300 extra personnel.
Retain river class type 1 ships for patrol duties around UK especially needed with Brexit around the corner. Put back into service Albion and Bulwark.
Retain the 3 youngest Trafalgar class SSNs and keep them in service until a batch 2 astute is available. This will mean refitting them, but 7 astutes is not enough subs!
The 3 youngest Trafalgar class are fine ships easily a match for most Russian and all of the Chinese available subs. The Russian navy still operate large numbers of Akula class subs that are comparable.
Retain HMS Ocean until 2023, she has just had a £65 million refit for just that purpose. We need a 3rd flat top, Ocean is unique as a light helicopter carrier in that she is a cheap unit able to be put into harms way during an amphibious landing. Unlike the £3 billion WE class that cannot be put at risk.
Find funding immediately for the type 45s to have their propulsion problems fixed and whilst at it put mk41 vl strike cells onto the type 45. Of all our armed forces I am utterly scared and worried about the negligent state of the Royal navy.

Or weapons of peace. Their is two ways of looking at everything.

Genuine question, why do you read a defence website and post on it? You obviously do not agree with spending on defence so I am a little baffled why you would waste your time.

The latest example of weasel words from UKdefencejournal.org

“It should be noted that the vessel has returned home from a lengthy deployment and likely would not go to sea again for sometime regardless of her usage in this role.”

Navy is too small. Problem is HMG is broke.

Things are worse than I thought.

Recruitment and retention:
put up pay! If as a nation we cannot afford to pay key public sector frontline personnel such as armed forces, police, firemen, ambulance men, nurses (basically all those in a uniform) then why did HMG cut corporation tax by 2%. Why do we give away £13 billion a year on foreign aid?
Put up income tax by 2-3p in every pound and share that out 0.5p in the pound extra for defence, education, social care, nhs.
Invest in the armed forces housing and basing in the UK (not abroad) so that they are not living in squalid sub standard housing. If that means adding £10 billion to the uk debt then so be it. All the basing in the UK should be modern and upto equivalent standards for private sector.
I said about bases abroad because the bases we built in Germany during the cold war were wasted taxpayers money. Required at the time but the only people benefiting from frontline hardened RAF and Army bases now are the bloody Germans who have taken them over. Yes free of charge.
RAF Laarbruch and Bruggen two perfect examples of multi billion pound bases just gifted to Germany. Then wait for it… we will be asked for a Brexit bill, having just spent 60 years defending Europe for the ungrateful Europeans. This issue really saddens me as nationally we have given so much to Europe in terms of lives lost fighting to free Europe, commitment, resources, money. All talk of a Brexit bill makes me think we should have just left the ungrateful Europeans under the yoke of the Nazi dictatorship. Both my grandads who fought on the frontline for the British Army in WW2 would be turning in their graves if they knew what the European union has become.
Back to defence now the answer is investment and commitment from HMG to improve pay but more importantly conditions of service.

So we are now down to 5 Destroyers ,and who know when that will be cut. The original requirement was for 12 Type 45 , which was then cut to 8 , and then 6 the Government citing that Type was more effective than they thought, What utterly spurious rubbish is quoted by Governments .
The so called ever increasing defence spend so often quoted by Fallon is fallacious. We will soon be as effective as the Swiss Navy. Its criminal how the Defence of this Nation is being eroded.

WHat????
Billion quid that cost how on Earth is that a wise spend of so much of OUR money

Jules
the type 45 cost a billion each because all the investment in the weapons and sensors for the type 45 programme- so Sampson radar and aster 15/30 missiles “sea viper” were all lumped onto 6 destroyers instead of the 12 planned and forecast.
if we had got 12 hulls instead of 6 the cost per hull would have been a very impressive £500 million each- cheaper than a FREMM frigate and about 1/3 the price of an Arleigh Burke destroyer which the type 45 are arguably better at air defence ship than

Absolutely scandalous! …..and 2x 45’s tied up at Cammel Laird’s in Liverpool, one for almost 2 years!! Is no one accountable??