"Navy facing heaviest Russian activity since Cold War ... " Topic

…says First Sea Lord.

"The Royal Navy is facing its greatest challenge from Russian submarines and warships for more than 25 years, the First Sea Lord has told his sailors.

Adml Sir Philip Jones said the Navy was dealing with the highest level of activity from Vladimir Putin's fleet since the end of the Cold War, even as it has to make "difficult" cuts to equipment.

The message from the head of the Royal Navy comes as British warships are again being readied to escort the Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov past the UK as it returns from its bombing campaign against Syrian rebels…."
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Armand

[troll post removed]

Shame that the only thing the RN has is submarines. Good thing that they're the best submarine drivers on the planet, though.

Yes, I will freely admit that RN captains (and RN-trained US subdrivers) are better than USN captains. The USN goes for engineering officers that can fight, the RN goes for fighters that mostly know the engineroom.

But the RN desperately needs more ASW-capable ships and Maritime Patrol Aircraft (both fixed-wing and helos).

They better hope Putin decides to play nice, I suspect.

Russia's navy is pretty weak too, but both sides still have a number of decent subs.

A conventional shooting war will end pretty quickly, I suspect, since there's not much to shoot at, or sink.

That's true enough -- any lost naval vessel becomes important (as do planes) when there's so few to begin with. This is part of what makes me wonder if hundreds of cheap missiles are going to spell the end of large, expensive, vulnerable surface craft operating as we have known them.