Royal Marines ‘storm’ tanker in Plymouth Sound

If its OK for France to have a carrier and 2-3 escorts then same for the RN I guess.

Plus I believe there will be allied escorts. Do I remember correctly the Dutch were going to contribute?

Barry is ex RN I think mate.

Hi mate, sorry my reply was a bit to grumpy to Barry, I just in occasion get bored with people doing down our capabilities. We both know the issues we have with our military but what we do have is a pretty all round set of capabilities which most do not! It’s always easier to moan than than to cheer, but the near future could be a bit tough to do the latter I fear for what we have myself. Respect Daniele.

I get your frustration but I think he’s just being realistic. Everyone and their pet budgie knows, the RN is a shell of its former self. Lack of funding, lack of ships and lack of willpower from politicians.

No I have no military knowledge at all
But I suppose I must have dreamt being used as targets by the old Buccaneers flying at us at about 20 ft above sea level and watching the Phantoms take off and escort the Russian Bears out of the area when we had real carriers with cats and traps
Also I must of dreamt that I was less than a mile from when the Atlantic Conveyer was hit and watching her burn
Funny these dreams sent they

Barry I wasn’t offering a job mate I don’t need the CV, but with respect you need to get away from the good old days etc, it wasn’t always better and the technology and systems certainly weren’t better! Do you think carrying 24 sea dart, or a few sea cat, or a couple of ships carrying new and rather chuff sea wolf, better than say a T45. Yes in the 60s we had carriers that could carry Buccaneers and Phantoms but as tech progresses one or two F35 could take out the lot! It’s called progression, not always for the best but that’s life.

I suppose DMS boots were great (they weren’t) and blisters and trench foot sorted the men from the boys in those days eh! Respect for your trip down south but shit wasn’t better in the old days! Yes we are woefully low on numbers, both equipment and manpower but what is available is some of the best around and available, we are just lacking depth and the ability to sustain losses. Prior to 82 all 3 services were in shit state, the RN was seriously underfunded and getting ripped to shreds by politicians, as is the same nowadays.

Looking back is more nostalgia than reality, but as humans it’s what we do, but the old days didn’t mean the best days, cheers.

Im not living in the past just pointing out your sarcastic remark to my original post
Yes i will admit the tech has advanced so much that it seems that the likes of yourselves think we are invincible
We thought that back in 82 and look what they sunk our ships with just plain old iron bombs and of course if they had more of those dammed Exocets gods knows what would have happened
The point im trying to make is dont put all your faith in this wonderful
tech we have becouse the enemy (whoever that might turn out to be ) will have the same and a lot lot more of it than we have
So with that comment our carrier task force is too small to protect the carriers without help from others

Your original post was flawed and someone else corrected it.
The air to air missiles and their availability forced the Argie Airforce to stay low and rely on iron bombs and made it difficult to hit or damage anything, allow them to be shot down and limited their range.

I certainly don’t think we are invincible as 29 years in uniform, in various shit pits around the world has shown me otherwise. But we do rely on tech, as a force multiplier, as you are correct, the enemy may/will have the same tech and capabilities, so we need the ability to match/overmatch who we face.

And in the grand scheme of things the planned carrier task group, in NATO, will be second only to the yanks. But it’s not just about numbers, it’s about the ISTAR and asymmetric warefare capabilities. It’s not just who has the biggest bombs now mate, its about a range of capabilities that are able to operate seamlessly together, mostly to do with information and the ability to transfer any such int immediately, between multiple platforms, over tens, hundreds, thousands of miles, in order to achieve a kinetic effect, on time and on target. I could harp on, and on, but it does seem you served many years ago, and with all due respect may not understand the modern capabilities and operating methods.

And as a final note, tech or not, over the last few conflicts it’s about boots on the ground, and the lack of them! Tech assists the mission and reduces the lads been killed or maimed therefore I will support that tech 100%. Cheers stay safe.

When I was at Plymouth Poly, the course I was on was split between the Poly and the FE at Devonport. The FE had a number of radars on the roof that we used to practice/train with. One of these was the Sea Slug 901 tracking radar from a County I believe. We used to track aircraft coming in and out of the airport. We got into serious trouble as we tracked a Sea Harrier during Navy Days, the pilot was less than happy. It was a very early radar so used a combination of valves and magnetrons to generate the RF. You could actually see it working, whoever said electricity is invisible needed to have a peek inside a 901. Below the roof was the control room for the antenna, the waveguide generator, and signal processor (all analogue) was huge, if I remember correctly something like 30 square feet of racking. It had to be constantly cooled by large fans as the room temperature was usually sitting at 40C.
Now today the Sampson by comparison is a quantum leap in development, significantly more capable and reliable. But Sampson wouldn’t have been possible without going through the development of Sea Slug and 901 and the subsequent pairings of Sea Dart with 909 and Sea Wolf with 910/911/968 and 996 combinations. It is a constant learning curve, improving on what has gone before.

However, I think our carrier task group (CTG) is better protected now more than ever, due to the lessons learned from the Falklands. Do we have enough ships, no. But as part a NATO CTG probably. Do the T45s carry enough Sea Vipers, no, as any adversary will probably launch a barrage of ASMs to swamp the defences. Do we need Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), most definitely. However, as always we make do with what we have. We have the QE class with F35s and that is a massive force multiplier on its own. But the carriers will also carry the Crowsnest equipped Merlins. Which is not in the E2D Hawkeye league, but is infinitely better than nothing. We will have at least one T class or Astute ranging around the CTG. Then closer in the stalwart T23s until T26 comes along plus the T45s sheparding the lot. So in a multi-layered screen I say we have a CTG that is very effective and can look after itself. Now if you add a Horizon class, Arliegh Burke, or De Zeven Provinciën-class it makes for a very formidable CTG.

Whether the CTG can survive its first true test is speculative, as all plans go to rat shit at first contact. You can only put your CTG and personnel through a number of training scenarios hoping that they cover an opponents likely method of attack.

In a T22 Surveillance Radar office you could get a florescent tube to light up whilst holding it in your hand due to the RF whizzing around in there. That and the noise from the 967 Radar doing its 3 x Frequency changes meant that in later years it became an unmanned office due to H&S concerns.
Better late than never I suppose!