"Sad Ending" Topic

sad to see it go like this -

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Lucky they hadn't finished what they'd started with this :

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'cos this happened :

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Funny old business the prediction of upcoming threats / world situations.

May she rest in peace. I don't live in the UK, but I appreciate her service and that of the men who served on her.

Theres a new one that wont be ready til 2020 right?

I head our boys have to practice landing on a french one for the mean time.

Maybe they could drop a few bombs for a laugh!

Nah, only joking, the french are cool ..

Most ships end up at the breakers or on the bottom. Sad but that is life. Mine is now an artificial reef off Pensacola Florida.

Artificial reef/dive site would have been a better end, I think.

I head our boys have to practice landing on a french one for the mean time.

Still you do end up getting comic-cuts like this one :

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Spot the stereotype !

Well – if you're getting your full deck take off & landing training in French planes on a French carrier manned by a French crew and under the eye of a French naval air arm instructor then having a good level of french is probably a good idea !

That was a sad sight.

I still reckon she deserved the HMS Belfast treatment. :(

There are different versions of the Nimrod. I think the one that was scrapped at Woodford was what would have been the maritime version MRA4 and the other one specialises in land surveillance. In other words, 'they' did finish what they started as all the MRA4s were scrapped.

disarmament is great , till you need the arms.

If she served with distinction, as she did, then her "loss" isn't in vain. I remember reading about her and her sisters when they were newly commissioned, and not too long after the decommissioning of the fourth HMS Ark Royal.

Thank you very much, "Vince", and all who served on board her. I salute you all for your gallant and steadfast service.

This makes absolutely no sense to me, these pilots must undergo 16 weeks of training in France merely for language. Then, they are segregated on the De Gaulle being placed in the officers quarters. French-UK military cooperation has never been great, so I ask, why the hell did the UK not just send their pilots to us (US Navy/Marines)?

They could train and fly with the USMC on the Harrier, or if wanting conventional flying experience, with the USN on the Hornet. Also, the language barrier would mostly be a non-issue. In addition we have over a dozen carriers and amphibious assault ships (which fly the Harrier), so opportunities for active deployment would be higher than with the French navy and its single carrier. This arrangement just seems a bit strange to me….YMMV

To add: Some additional things nagging at me, UK crews could get combat experience in Afghanistan this way, and they would have much easier access to major US training exercises at Red Flag and NAS Fallon. Additionally they could probably get earlier stick time on the F-35 if stationed in the US than waiting for it to arrive in the UK.

Sorry, I just cannot fathom why the Royal Navy and MoD went this route.

I don't think that the Harrier is really an issue any more:

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They may be attempting to improve their Anglo-French cooperation, since they seem to have been doing a fair number of joint missions in the past few years. Not that we couldn't do with a few Limeys about the place to give it a bit of class.

"They could train and fly with the USMC on the Harrier, or if wanting conventional flying experience, with the USN on the Hornet."

They are doing that too

"disarmament is great , till you need the arms".

Surely you don't think in this new age of enlightenment, and strong global economic trade that there will ever be a need for armed hostilities again, do you?

That's a rhetorical question, full of heavy, dripping sarcasm.

I think I have 2 maybe 3 marks of this class in 1/3000
scale but never painted one up due to the CVA 01 being available from Denian.

Hey – who are you guys kidding.

This is just a way for the airheads to get decent food!

One should only get rid of weapons when they are no longer needed or have been replaced with something better.

"No longer needed" can, unfortunately, have a wide interpretation that does not necessarily match the needs of national defense v's offensive capacity when needed.

I read somewhere that correspondingly the French are having English language lessons too. As for using a French carrier there has been talk of a Euro army, navy, & airforce for several years under the banner of the EU and many wonder if this isn't a sneaky way of initiating it. After a few years of togetherness they can say what a success it has been and then the rest of Europe can be invited to pile in. Seeing that the US are saying NATO is finished unless Europe starts pulling it's weight and putting troops into Afghanistan and elsewhere rather than relying on rhetoric and the US Army to do the job maybe it will end up with a Euro army,navy etc after all? Unless the Euro implodes and that eventually leads to countries starting to leave the Union (one can only hope)

'they' did finish what they started as all the MRA4s were scrapped

But some of the ones still in use (in Libya) were suppossed to be scrapped too by now – 'cos there was no forseeable need for them.

The main reason for going to the French for the training is because the plan is to timeshare the carriers (UK is building 2 but only bringing one into service).

16weeks of language training ? Well, maybe that'll be enough to get them up to full technical level French – but honestly I doubt it. Having a mission briefing in French surely you need to understand 100% – it's not like ordering a meal and getting your steak raw when you really wanted well done.

The whole problem with these toys is that nations cannot simply add to the leadpile, paint whats needed for next weekend and then go to war.

Development cycles are now several electoral cycles so the government which places an order is highly unlikely to be held accountable for either unneccesary expenditure or an underperforming asset.

Military assets should be accumulated based on perceived need over lead times. So if a carrier takes a decade to build, there needs to be a dmonstrable need for carriers in order to fulfil the country's diplomatic and military needs for the period say 10-20 years from now. Conversely, it is insanity to say that a nation has an ongoing need for carriers, put two into production, and scrap the existing ones.

Absent clear political guidelines on what their toys are for, the military will require a balanced force – ie one which can, to a degree, do everything. This is somewhat akin to your neighbourhood milkman welding a tray to the back of his maserati in case he is called upon to compete in a motor race.

The problem with time sharing carriers with the French is that the Brits and the French do not share vital interests. The agreement seems to be all about cooperation, absent clear clauses about not cooperating, one presumes that in the event of a difference, each party has the right to take their bat and ball and go home.

A scenario loosely based on history might suffice:

A colonial outpost populated by happy little nationals is taken over by a regional power.

A Franco British task force is assembled, comprising 2 carriers, a collection of amphibious and converted ships and a mixed escort.

They set sail.

An escort is destroyed with enormous loss of life, a submarine of the same country sinks an enemy warship and half the world screams "War Crime".

The other nation's carrier is hit with enormous loss of life.

Nation 1 declares further prosecution of the war to be politically unnacceptable and takes their ships home.

If you are going to fight this war, it MUST be with assets that you can count on in good times and bad.

Sounds like time to beef up the SBS Kayak fleet…..

You would have thought the USN would have something bobbing about somewhere which still a some mileage left in it that we could have leased for the interim as a get out of jail card?

well given the general level of rhettoric in the media etc in the UK about being dragged into the USA's wars (not that I'd necessarily agree but it is the case without much doubt a pretty unpopular war in the UK as every opinion poll illustrates)then maybe a closer link to the US military is not something the UK govt wants

You would have thought the USN would have something bobbing about somewhere which still a some mileage left in it that we could have leased for the interim as a get out of jail card?

Thanks but no thanks. We've only just finished paying off your last generous loan.