The Shrunken Royal Navy

[alastairq]

Re- the UK insurance issue?

Isn't that a good way of forcing Russia to waste a lot of money?

After all, when I think about how many decades I've motored around making sure nobody can have a successful claim against me, must mean my insurers have made quite a tidy profit out of my driving?

 

Probably why the Ukrainians [bless them, they have my unequivocal support...] decided to strike Russia's export facilities in the Baltic..rather than sink the tankers?

[KeithMacdonald]

6 minutes ago, alastairq said:

Re- the UK insurance issue?

Isn't that a good way of forcing Russia to waste a lot of money?

 

No, it's a good way of forcing us to waste money.

Because it's all part of the cost-of-doing-business.

Which is added-on to the cost of the oil we are buying from "India".

Country name in quotes, because it's part of the game of pretending sanctions are working.

And we are definitively not buying "Russian" oil when we buy it from a third party,

[Ozexpatriate]

On 23/01/2024 at 19:29, jjb1970 said:

I see much more debate in both political and media circles in the US than in the UK. 

For what it's worth I saw this reported today:

 

CNN: US secretly warned Iran before ISIS terror attack

Quote

The US secretly warned Iran that ISIS was planning a potential terror attack inside Iran’s borders before the group carried out a deadly attack near the burial site of slain military commander Qasem Soleimani on January 3, according to a US official.

 

Also reported by Reuters, the WSJ and Jerusalem Post.

 

Edited January 26 by Ozexpatriate

[jjb1970]

14 hours ago, Grovenor said:

So all our attacks on the Houthi have achieved so far is an increase in the list of ships that are at risk of attack.

 

That's slightly unfair, it's also increased the possibility of a regional conflagration and deepened the hole we're in.

[jjb1970]

On insurance and sanctions, the areas of shipping Europe are still leaders in are insurance, finance, law and liner shipping (the three biggest lines are MSC, Maersk & CMA-CGM).

 

I know a lot of insurers that offered very strong advice that the price cap controls on insurance would simply move insurance to competitors. The logic in London and Brussels is business will return when things return to normal, but once companies become comfortable with alternatives which are cheaper why would they come back? 

[whart57]

On 24/01/2024 at 01:31, jjb1970 said:

 

Absolutely, a truth many either ignore or don't get. People can view the same events from different perspectives and arrive at very different conclusions, and for those individuals their conclusions are perfectly reasonable.

 

 

That's the Israel-Palestine situation exactly. The events of the last century are the same but the two sides see them differently. There is no hope of a resolution unless each side is willing to accept that the other side has a different interpretation. Miles from that I'm afraid.

[2750Papyrus]

On 24/01/2024 at 00:18, billbedford said:

 

Has somebody been reading Jackie Fisher's old notes?

I believe that, in the carrier programme trade-offs carried out in the days of Blair and Brown, if air support to Poland was required, it was considered more cost-effective to operate from a carrier in the Baltic rather than from land bases.

[billbedford]

22 minutes ago, 2750Papyrus said:

I believe that, in the carrier programme trade-offs carried out in the days of Blair and Brown, if air support to Poland was required, it was considered more cost-effective to operate from a carrier in the Baltic rather than from land bases.

 

Do you mean the Russians saw us coming?

[whart57]

4 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

I believe that, in the carrier programme trade-offs carried out in the days of Blair and Brown, if air support to Poland was required, it was considered more cost-effective to operate from a carrier in the Baltic rather than from land bases.

 

It would be interesting to know what was being compared to what. Measure the right things and ignore the unhelpful and any conclusion is possible. The carrier programme was a political thing from the start and needed every justification presented to counter the sceptics.

[burgundy]

5 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

I believe that, in the carrier programme trade-offs carried out in the days of Blair and Brown, if air support to Poland was required, it was considered more cost-effective to operate from a carrier in the Baltic rather than from land bases.

If I remember correctly, the preoccupation in the early 2000s was with "expeditionary warfare" and the Baltic was hardly on the radar. With Typhoon as the new frontline fighter, I should be surprised if any European scenario did not assume that we would operate in conjunction with other Typhoon operators. 

Best wishes 

Eric 

[jjb1970]

At one point BAE were advocating development of a Sea Typhoon for use with catapults and arrestor gear. BAE were apparently quite confident but history seems to indicate it is much easier to use a carrier aircraft on land than the other way around (though clearly there hve been quite a few naval adaptations of land fighters, such as naval versions of the Spitfire, Hurricane, MiG29 and Su27).

[burgundy]

5 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

At one point BAE were advocating development of a Sea Typhoon for use with catapults and arrestor gear. BAE were apparently quite confident but history seems to indicate it is much easier to use a carrier aircraft on land than the other way around (though clearly there hve been quite a few naval adaptations of land fighters, such as naval versions of the Spitfire, Hurricane, MiG29 and Su27).

I don't think even BAe had any serious interest in a maritime version of Typhoon - although the suggestion came up on a roughly two yearly cycle. 

If you wished to induce apoplexy in certain quarters, you could suggest that we should have ordered a couple of squadrons of Rafales for our naval role and that the French, in exchange, should have ordered a couple of squadrons of Typhoons for air defence.  

Best wishes 

Eric

[whart57]

5 hours ago, burgundy said:

If you wished to induce apoplexy in certain quarters, you could suggest that we should have ordered a couple of squadrons of Rafales for our naval role and that the French, in exchange, should have ordered a couple of squadrons of Typhoons for air defence.  

Best wishes 

Eric

 

Which more or less sums up Western defence policy of the last seventy years. Military strategists and Defence Ministry officials draw up detailed reports on future defence risks and requirements and then the lobbyists from the arms companies come in and work on the politicians. Politicians who are scared of what the media and their opponents will spin. Jobs in British shipyards and business for British arms and aerospace companies weighed more heavily in the decision for building two new carriers than any rational assessment of Britain's - and Europe's - defence needs.

[billbedford]

Then Johnny Foreigner does something we hadn't even thought of...

[whart57]

Johnny Foreigner is actually wrong-footed by some things we've done over the last ten years - things they never expected we'd do.

[KeithMacdonald]

11 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Johnny Foreigner is actually wrong-footed by some things we've done over the last ten years - things they never expected we'd do.

 

Friends who have been through Shrivenham say the same. It was when we still had exchange visits from senior Russian staff. One notable lecture included the remark that they couldn't believe we (NATO) had repeated every single mistake they had made in Afghanistan (but made it worse).

[JeremyC]

43 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Friends who have been through Shrivenham say the same. It was when we still had exchange visits from senior Russian staff. One notable lecture included the remark that they couldn't believe we (NATO) had repeated every single mistake they had made in Afghanistan (but made it worse).

A number of years ago while we were still in Afghanistan there was a documentary on TV about the history of foreign involvement there up to the, then, present day. One of the people interviewed was a former Russian general. He was asked by the documentary's presenter what advice would he give to those countries with forces there; his reply was "Go home".

Edited January 27 by JeremyC

[jjb1970]

And now we are into a war against another group of hardy people who have been fighting for years in a mountainous country, what could possibly go wrong.

[johnofwessex]

What I find bizarre is that a British Army was literally wiped out in Afghanistan in 1842, we had decades of fun in the North West Frontier, but left Afghanistan itself well alone, watched the USSR get into a right mess then marched merrily in ourselves.

 

You can't make it up

[jjb1970]

1 hour ago, whart57 said:

 

Which more or less sums up Western defence policy of the last seventy years. Military strategists and Defence Ministry officials draw up detailed reports on future defence risks and requirements and then the lobbyists from the arms companies come in and work on the politicians. Politicians who are scared of what the media and their opponents will spin. Jobs in British shipyards and business for British arms and aerospace companies weighed more heavily in the decision for building two new carriers than any rational assessment of Britain's - and Europe's - defence needs.

 

While there's truth in that to a degree, it's not as simple. Quite often defence contractors recommend changes precisely to avoid a train wreck down the line but are rebuffed and told 'we know best'. Often politics trumps both the technical experts of both the MoD and industry. There tends to be a pendulum effect of veering between buy at home and buy overseas because the home made stuff isn't very good (assisted by Roger Ford's seventh law), often the fancy foreign stuff is just as problematic as the domestic stuff.

[J. S. Bach]

13 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

At one point BAE were advocating development of a Sea Typhoon for use with catapults and arrestor gear. BAE were apparently quite confident but history seems to indicate it is much easier to use a carrier aircraft on land than the other way around (though clearly there hve been quite a few naval adaptations of land fighters, such as naval versions of the Spitfire, Hurricane, MiG29 and Su27).

And the F4 Phantom!

[alastairq]

The big question has to be, how long will Article 5 stand up?  

Do we [or anybody else for that matter?] really want NATO to continue?

Or will everybody's foreign policies be reduced to ''I'm all right, Jack, s#d you?''

Will the carriers actually end up off Norway?

 

Would we [the UK's voting public?] be bothered about Finland? Truly?  

 

Patton was right [IIRC?],  

 

 

[burgundy]

5 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

There tends to be a pendulum effect of veering between buy at home and buy overseas because the home made stuff isn't very good (assisted by Roger Ford's seventh law), often the fancy foreign stuff is just as problematic as the domestic stuff.

The dynamics are quite complicated. If you buy cheap, it usually means that you buy from the US, with the advantage that it gives you standardisation. You are, however, stepping onto an escalator, as the US is pretty good at product improvement and the cheapest way to get support is to stay in step. You are therefore pretty much committed to following the US lead and may incur costs that you had not intended. The US is also sometimes inclined to give you an "export version", which is not quite the same as theirs.

If you support your own industry, it creates jobs and technology (which always goes down well with politicians and voters), but it also gives you greater freedom of action.  In the event of a Trump presidency, with the threat of leaving Europe to its own devices, that may suddenly become a rather important issue. 

Best wishes 

Eric  

[burgundy]

1 hour ago, alastairq said:

The big question has to be, how long will Article 5 stand up?  

Do we [or anybody else for that matter?] really want NATO to continue?

Or will everybody's foreign policies be reduced to ''I'm all right, Jack, s#d you?''

Will the carriers actually end up off Norway?

 

Would we [the UK's voting public?] be bothered about Finland? Truly?  

Benjamin Franklin put it rather succinctly on the signing the Declaration of Independence:

“Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Having visited the Baltics last autumn, there was no doubt that they feel extremely vulnerable and there is good reason why there are NATO multinational battle groups in each one. The UK leads the contingent in Estonia.  

Meanwhile, outside a bar in Tallinn.......

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

You can't make it up

 

Sir Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington:

Quote

It is easy to get into Afghanistan. The problem is getting out again.

I don't know if this is an accurate quote or one of those nebulous internet quotes - you can find a reference here.

 

There are many interesting comments from the record in the House of Lords from Wellington and his big brother the Marquess Wellesley.

Quote

Marquis Wellesley regarded 'this wild expedition into a distant region of rocks and deserts, of sands and ice and snow,' as an act of infatuation. The Duke of Wellington pronounced with prophetic sagacity, that the consequence of once crossing the Indus to settle a government in Afghanistan would be a perennial march into that country.

My emphasis. From here.