Quote:
Originally Posted by PubFather
JMH - sorry to say this but you are clearly an idiot who spends too much time reading rabidly anti-Labour newspapers.
The fate of the remaining 2 Darings is unclear - your speculation on a Saudi sale probably refers to hulls 7 and 8 rather than 5 and 6 (Dragon and Duncan iirc).
All the indications are that CVF will be ordered - it is less certain (and contingent on the Sarkozy/Royal battle) if PA2 is ever ordered. CdG has not proved to be a successful design/vessel and is plagued with problems.
As for your neo-Conservative venom about some socialist unified EU military - not going to happen, certainly not with UK backing. Some moves to rationalisation certainly, more importantly, a genuine commercial effort to challenge the USA's high tech dominance of the defense market.
Ocean will be (longterm) the LPH component of the CVF mix. It's likely that the CVF's will spend a considerable length of time pretending to be a LPH due to airframe numbers and rotation issues. I very much doubt that Lusty will be refitted in the same way that Ark has, should the CVF contracts appear as expected..
Of course, I stand read to eat my hat should the govt do a complete u-turn on CVF
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Well, I know it may be hard to face the facts, but the British Labour Government has been committed to significantly slashing the UK Defence forces since it came into power ten years ago. Have you ever wondered why?
According to the British Labour Government it is far better to invest in soft power rather than hard power. Soft power is investment in the EU, UN, and foreign financial aid (especially to Africa). Hard power is investment in Defence, Intelligence and Industry to build a military to confront enemy nations and prevent wars from occurring through deterrence and decisively winning a war should deterrence fail. Soft power is the Neville Chamberlain approach to dealing with dictators and unstable governments which is: give them what they want and you will be able to avoid war through appeasement. Essentially, use bribery to pay for national security by preventing wars from occurring through keeping dictators and unstable governments happy by the rewards or bribes given to them.
This is all fine and dandy because as long as the USA keeps a substantial military presence in Europe the UK's national defence is assured. But, unfortunately September 11, 2001 happened and a new war started that does not have any boundaries and the enemy does not come from any particular state. Consequently, deterrence and soft power have no influence at all against the terrorist enemy in this new War on Terror. The British government decided to join the War on Terror with the USA and has deployed its military to Iraq and Afghanistan and other locations. While the War on Terror has progressed the USA has substantially increased its Defence Budget while the British Government has substantially increased its investment in soft power while it continues it cuts in defence and hard power. This policy is the epitome of weakness and presents a divided front to terrorists and terror sponsoring states. Terrorists and terror sponsoring states will exploit this weakness, as was so aptly demonstrated by Iran's capture of British military personnel. The morally bankrupt Europeans are so heavily set in their policies of appeasement and indifference to international threats that they blame the USA for the Muslim Terror threat and they would not be disappointed if the USA loses in Iraq and Afghanistan. These Europeans will not wake up to the Muslim Terror threat until huge numbers of Europeans have been killed by these terrorists, and when Europe finally does wake up, they will look to the USA for their security. The disturbing thing is that every day the UK is becoming increasingly like the morally weak Europeans.