More problems on the second-hand subs

Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

"Gordon Brown will have reduced this country shortly to having a navy smaller than that of Belgium".

Surely you mean Switzerland!.

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Re: Tragic ending to this

Germany of course, but that may be politically incorrect still? Also Sweden is going to sell, the politicians just told the navy they have to cut down their budget...it's a pity that there possibly will be no more of these new fiberglass stealth corvettes either.

<hr width=100% size=1>http://www.sail.to/alacrity<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by jenku on 08/10/2004 19:53 (server time).</FONT></P>
 
Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

Errrm, decision was taken in 1993/1994, well before "things were going to get better".

We can blame Gordon for a lot, but not this one. The end of the cold war had more to do with it, but it's a shame that the crystal ball didn't focus far enough into the future to see that they might have been useful one day.

Ditto the latest carriers. Why are they even considering shortening them ? This is cost driven madness...

dv.

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Re: Tragic ending to this

"Maybe you want to phone up the family of Lt. Chris Saunders in Halifax and tell them that he got what was coming to him, as you have inside knowledge that Canadians can't operate submarines as well as Pommies.

Pompous wanker."

I have two main points to make here.

One. The Canadian authorities and ultimately the Canadian CO of this boat must have agreed the boat was seaworthy or they would never have accepted the delivery of the boat.

Two. The death of Lt Saunders is tragic. However he accepted the risks that his career entailed. It's what we refer to as 'That's life in a blue suit.'

What's even more tragic is that many civilians do not realise the risks that are undertaken by a very few people in society on their behalf.

If you're looking for someone to blame, blame your government for wanting submarines and requiring sailors to man them.

<hr width=100% size=1>At the end of the day - Sunset.
 
Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

Typical political tricksterism. Decide on large carriers that have the ability to provide considerable defence over a reasonable area, then justify these larger carriers by reducing numbers of protecting escorts, then reduce the size of the carriers so they need more escorts. I could rant on here for a long time but had better shut up /forums/images/icons/crazy.gif

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Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

Just who is it we are going to war against? I honestly think the only potential danger now are terrorists - religious wars - and carriers may not be the solution.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.michaelbriant.com/sailing>http://www.michaelbriant.com/sailing</A>
 
Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

gordon brown the defense minister will have to explain why he sold Canada a sub without a survey. But then i know people who sell cats as yachts! with a large outside sun deck.

Well as the sale wont go through just wait for new taxes--anyone got any money left???

<hr width=100% size=1>liveaboard
 
Re: Walking on by

The high -level waste from a small reactor in a sub, the stuff you worry about, would fill half a small bucket. Yes, you have to keep it a long time but most poisons last for ever. According to well-respected research, people who work close to radiation such as submariners and radiologists (and those bomb victims who werent fried in the actual blast) actually live longer than the rest of us. So it's not a big deal.

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The incredible shrinking carriers

I have to say this is a subject I feel strongly about too; the parallels that can be drawn between the situation now and the cancellation of the CVA-01 in the sixties would be funny if it wasn't so serious. Even the bizarre, otherworldly political decision to reduce the displacement from 60k to 50k 'because it will be cheaper' is a practically verbatim echo from the Wilson government. I will also stop now, or I will be coming down with RSI by the time I stop moaning about bonehead politicians.

As for 2nd hand subs;

we should never have sold them in the first place(bonehead politicians again). Machinery doesn't benefit from being idle, complex systems like submarines doubly so. These sat idle for around 5 years, gently rusting. Why they could not have been used by the RN for training technicians and EOs is rather unclear. The whole story seems to be a bizarre media storm over an unfortunate and tragic accident and a series of fairly vanilla problems which inevitably crop up when recommissioning the aforementioned complex machinery. A £billionworth in state-of-the-art diesel electric subs for 750 million loonies? A bargain at twice the price IMHO.

Cheers,
David

<hr width=100% size=1>I? I am Kaptain Kaos, and this is my faithful companion, Kato. Say hello Kato! Been a cop long?
 
Stop the Press! Sub.....

....marine sighted passing Cloch at this very moment. I'd have a pithy one liner to go with it, but i'm fresh out.

cheers,
David

<hr width=100% size=1>I? I am Kaptain Kaos, and this is my faithful companion, Kato. Say hello Kato! Been a cop long?
 
Re: Stop the Press! Sub.....

What amazes me is where the Carolyn Chouest came from.

Well known family of boat entrepeneurs, has cost our company handsome over the years. Hats off to them - crafty b***ers.

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Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

You will be delighted to know that Britian does not have any carriers in her fleet.The "invincible" class are now known as "through deck cruisers" all part of a scam a number of years ago to show the Warsaw Pact that NATO was cutting its fleet in return for similar cuts in Russia.At the same time Britain got rid of all its destroyers.Overnight the fleet of type 42 destroyers which were cut became type 42s.

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Letting the side down

I find it highly offensive that people are ranting on with racist comments and downright stupid statements over the fire aboard this submarine and who is to blame.
One of the great things about mariners was always the notion that those in trouble would receive help from any other mariner irrelevant of race or creed or whether commercial or pleasure.
As users of the sea can we not see that two children have lost their father and a young wife has lost her husband in a marine accident aboard a submarine during peace time.
The notion of sticking together obviously does not apply to a large number of leisure boaters.
For my part I hope that the accident investigation will prevent future tragedies aboard these vessels and the surviving crewmembers have a speedy recovery.
Dont let down the leisure boaters by trivialising or sneering at a maritime tradgedy

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Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

correct that it was a scam, but had nothing to do with NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The Helicopter Carrier Class was developed as part of the NATO force. Dennis Healey (Defence Minister at the time) said that they would never be used for fixed wing aircraft. Within a few years it became obvious that some form of protection was required to get the long range reconnaissance aircraft (another lesson from WW2 that had been "forgotten" by the politicians), and the Harrier was introduced. Original load was 7 harriers. but I think they made the ships with elastic sides cause they carry a lot more now!

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Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

Have the Harrier's not been allocated to the RAF now ?
Like we forgot the air born radar before the Falklands, after all why would we want aircraft with two props going opposite ways, save a few quid there, opps were did that exocet come from ??

Brian

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Re: Walking on by

There's a whole raft of evidence about low-dose radiation being a positive benefit. Studies show that nuclear reactor workers, shipyard workers building US nuclear subs, people in Taiwan exposed to steel beams of an apartment building that somehow were polluted with radioactive paint, and medical radiological workers in this country, have lower cancer rates than the ordinary population. Guarapari Beach in Brazil is 5-600 times "hotter" than Paris but far from dying of radiation hundreds of people every day bury themselves in the black sand to enjoy its health-giving benefits. Like all toxins, water and even oxygen, too much radiation is certainly bad for you but tiny doses of it do you good. A modern well-run nuclear power reactor emits about as mnuch radiation as our own bodies.

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Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

two types of harrier:
GR7 - Mud mover flown by RAF. very limited air-to-air - recent mods mean this one will go on until replacement by next generation aircraft JSF.
SHAR FR2 - air intercept and some mud moving flown by Fleet Air Arm. being phased out before JSF arrive for some unknown reason leaving fleet with big shortfall in capability until JSF arrives.

Thus the only aircraft for a while to be flown from the carriers will be manned by RAF IMHO this is intentional so that the JSF when it arrives will be a RAF preserve, and Fleet Air Arm pilots will only drive helicopters.


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Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

That was were we where before the Falklands, awiating delivery of the new early warning system. So if we get attacked this afternoon do the carriers call a time-out pending delivery of the JSF.
They said years ago that they had a new ATC train control system, so we are scraping the existing one, still no sign of the new one. So trains can go through red lights, yet the GWR introduced ATC nearly 100 years ago, that stopped them doing this. Progress is a funny thing these days.

Do we ever learn, may be why were not running the country.


Brian

Brian

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Re: who\'s \"The Royal navey\"?

IIRC the GR7 can sport the necessary AIM9Js, or whatever mark they've reached, but lacks a suitably spiffy radar (like the FRS2's Bluefox) to do the intercepts with, so strictly VFR intercepts and tight control from AEW. C'est la vie.

Cheers,
David

<hr width=100% size=1>I? I am Kaptain Kaos, and this is my faithful companion, Kato. Say hello Kato! Been a cop long?
 
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