What's the navy for?

orbister said:
In this case they did something very effective, and far more effective than a shooting match would have been.
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I suppose they did. They gave the world an image of the RN that involved surrender and then snivelling over their IPod. They lost a patrol vessel and their weapons. They lost any honour the service might have had. And the Iranians now know that when they meet the RN, whether in Iranian waters or outside, the RN will surrender.

P.S. I'm struggling to work out, Orbister, whether you really believe all this or are the best wind up merchant I have ever come across. Which is it? :-)
 
wotayottie said:
I don't like being fair to the politicians, but the idea that the forces are starved of money is nonsense. The real problem is that they waste it in procurement big time. They have helicopters they cant fly, ships that are years late in build, guns that dont work, more civil servants than fighting men. If you set out to design an operation dedicated to wasting money you would struggle to do better than MoD procurement.

Do the pirates spend more nthan the Navy they are beating? Or the Iranians?
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Gordon has pretty nearly halved the proportion of government income spent on the forces over the last 12 years. Many of the procurement errors are created by MOD civil serpents who are expected to buy more with less. Is it not surprising that the more you penny pinch the more cockups you make. The helicopters you mention was a case where they tried to save money by a spot of DIY and surprise surprise it went wrong. Had they had proper funding the aircraft would have been fine.
 
I will stand by what I said earlier..............in my day we would not have allowed ourselves to be taken prisoner. It has absolutely nothing to do with who owns what water or navigational errors.
They had an armed helicopter minutes away..............why did they not call for help ?
Why did the mother ship not see the approaching Iranians and take action ?

Sounds to me like a bunch of badly trained PC wimps who prefer to listen to ipods & play computer games.
Seems the male matelot of today is somewhat lacking in aggression. And I have no doubt that is because of girlies onboard ships.

The two worst things that have happened to the RN in my lifetime are without doubt;

1) Removal of the Tot
2) Allowing/making females serve on ships.
 
wotayottie said:
So you are saying, are you, that if you had strayed into the territorial waters of another country with whom we were not at war, and if they then quite legally decided to detain you, you would have considered killing their forces an appropriate way to respond?
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wotayottie said:
Entirely.
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So you would 100per cent support any foreign power accidently came into UK territorial waters and shot a load of our sailors when we stopped them?
 
Sandyman said:
Seems the male matelot of today is somewhat lacking in aggression.
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Fortunately he's not lacking in intelligence and makes very wise decisions that result in good outcomes.

The Chandlers are still alive and the odds are they will be released, or if the kidnappers do decide to shoot them for lack of ransom at least the kidnappers will know that the UK does not pay ransoms and will not bother another UK yacht.

In Iran the Navy lost a rib but didn't end up leaving us with the bill for the families of a handful of dead sailors to support for the foreseeable. Also they upheld the idea that national waters belong to the nation, and the nation alone and should be respected. Pretty useful for an island nation like us.

Listening to the delusional dribbling on here I think as a nation our sailors are in the right job and our internet Captain Manwarings are also in the right place!
 
We wouldn't stop them and we wouldn't be after taking them hostage. We would probably point out the error of there ways and ask them to politely leave, having given them a nice cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich.
 
Twister_Ken said:
"No armed forces can nowadays going waltzing around wherever they like and start shooting if the people who own the area don't like it."

So there was no invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, then?
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Ah. Yes. That should either have been "No armed forces can nowadays legitimately ..." or "...don't like it without starting a war".

Would a declaration of war on Iran have helped our forces in Iraq or Afghanistan?
 
wotayottie said:
I suppose they did. They gave the world an image of the RN that involved surrender and then snivelling over their IPod. They lost a patrol vessel and their weapons. They lost any honour the service might have had. And the Iranians now know that when they meet the RN, whether in Iranian waters or outside, the RN will surrender.
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They didn't kill anyone and none of them got killed. They demonstrated that the RN is not an organisation of trigger happy cowboys.

P.S. I'm struggling to work out, Orbister, whether you really believe all this or are the best wind up merchant I have ever come across. Which is it? :-)
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I simply cannot see how having a shooting match with the Iranians in Iranian waters would have done any good at all.

Here's a parallel. A US navy vessel is visiting Plymouth. A group of US sailors having a jolly round the harbour in a tender enter the exclusion zone for a RN ship making its way out and refuse to get out the way. A modplod boat goes to have a word with them, and the Americans sink it with gunfire, killing the crew. How do you think that would go down?
 
orbister said:
Here's a parallel. A US navy vessel is visiting Plymouth. A group of US sailors having a jolly round the harbour in a tender enter the exclusion zone for a RN ship making its way out and refuse to get out the way. A modplod boat goes to have a word with them, and the Americans sink it with gunfire, killing the crew. How do you think that would go down?
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a) The RN would surrender

b) The British PM would apologise

c) Lessons would be learnt!
 
toad_oftoadhall said:
Which is *exactly* how the navys of nations at peace should behave to one another.
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Quite. But................it was classed as a hostile area. We may not have been at war with Iran at the time but there was a great deal of saber rattling going on. Thats why we & they were armed.
 
Sandyman said:
Quite. But................it was classed as a hostile area. We may not have been at war with Iran at the time but there was a great deal of saber rattling going on.
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I love the way you describe occupying two of Iran's neighbours in bloody invasions, as "sabre rattling". Leave that aside. Let's also leave aside the fact that Britain has done Iran the biggest favour every by freeing the Shia majority in Iraq (two thirds of the country) to become effectively a province of Iran - see "The End of Iraq" by Gallbraith (sp?).

One fact remains. Anyone who thinks the fact that a dinghy full of sailors gave themselves up to Iran rather than commit suicide & cause an international incident is evidence that Iran could beat the west in a sea battle is off their rocker.

Certainly, nobody in Iran will have drawn that conclusion - the more I read about Iran the more rational their decision making looks.
 
toad_oftoadhall said:
Clue: The post I'm asking you to explain was nothing to do with the Chandlers. You said you weren't happy with the fact that everyone in the Iranian/RIB incident went home alive.

I'm asking you how many people you feel should have died.

Third time lucky?
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Ah, thank you for the clue - a glimpse into the way you're thinking.

OK, you're making two assumptions; the first is that the post you're asking me to explain has nothing to with the Chandlers and the second is that I feel someone should have died.

To take the latter first, you actually asked if people were happy with the outcome, to which I replied "No". I don't want anyone to die unnecessarily however. My definition of a "necessary" death is one that eliminates a serious threat to those I protect (i.e. my family and loved ones and of course myself) or a threat to my country. It's difficult to be more specific - like most things in life, it's a judgement call. To clarify, if the deaths of Iranian sailors had resulted in saving of British lives later then I would have been satisfied with that aspect of the outcome, although not with the fact that someone had died. I was very unimpressed with the general handling of the incident and the demeanour of the personnel - I was definitely unhappy with that aspect of the outcome.

Note I have used the word satisfied rather than happy - happy is the feeling I get when my lad does well, when my girlfriend and I are watching a good film, when my team wins, etc. Many people, myself included, tend to say "I'm happy with that" when we really mean "I'm satisfied with that" or even just "I'll accept that".

The second assumption is probably more a matter of a difference of opinion. Given that it was in a thread entitled "What's the navy for?" where the performance of the RN in general and more specifically in two incidents, to wit, the Chandler's kidnapping and the Iranian capture of an RN boat in disputed waters, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a connection between the two.

I believe there is an indirect link between the Navy's showing in the Gulf incident and the Chandler's kidnapping and that link is via the perception of RN as a threat.

Does that explain it for you?
 
grumpy_o_g said:
Ah, thank you for the clue - a glimpse into the way you're thinking.
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No, just helping you with simple English comprehension.


grumpy_o_g said:
the second is that I feel someone should have died. To take the latter first, you actually asked if people were happy with the outcome, to which I replied "No".
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Nope, as a quick scroll upwards shows, I specifically asked if people were happy with an outcome where everyone went home alive to which you answered no.

grumpy_o_g said:
To clarify, if the deaths of Iranian sailors
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I think we can safely say the English would have been the losers - they were totally out gunned - so it was predominantly English deaths you wanted to see. Not Iranian deaths. Of course Iranians would have died as well.

grumpy_o_g said:
Does that explain it for you?
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You said something stupid. Now you've backtracked, so I'm happy.

I still don't agree with your new position. You seem to be saying if the English Sailors had been killed in a shootout with a greater force it would have sent a signal to the Iranian's that they shouldn't mess with English Sailors.

The reality is that military decisions are made on slightly more rational grounds than "how hard the last guys fought back". The fact a RIB didn't fight back doesnt mean an Iranian boat armed with a 50cal or whatever it was will think it can capture a British Aircraft Carrier.

So we'd have lost a boat load of our guys for no reason at all.
 
So, for my first line I wrote" Ah, thank you for the clue - a glimpse into the way you're thinking."

You replied "No, just helping you with simple English comprehension." Not a good start - a snide (and inaccurate) remark.

You quoted me as writing "the second is that I feel someone should have died. To take the latter first, you actually asked if people were happy with the outcome, to which I replied "No""

Then you wrote "Nope, as a quick scroll upwards shows, I specifically asked if people were happy with an outcome where everyone went home alive to which you answered no. "

Quote:
Originally Posted by wotayottie
Or should it be "values playing safe and doing nothing much"?
Unquote

Quote
Originally posted by toad_oftoadhall
If it was that it certainly worked. Everyone involved in the incident lived.

Are you not happy with that outcome?
Unquote

You asked "Are you not happy with that outcome"

I replied No. - I could have further said I was not happy with that outcome but I haven't said that I would be happy if people die. You've managed to get there somehow but I can't make that leap of logic. I don't want people to die unnecessarily but I am not happy with the outcome. I can't see them as mutually exclusive.


OK - now you've really lost the plot. I wrote "To clarify, if the deaths of Iranian sailors had resulted in saving of British lives later then I would have been satisfied with that aspect of the outcome, although not with the fact that someone had died."

You selected a few words from the sentence "To clarify, if the deaths of Iranian sailors" and then wrote: "I think we can safely say the English would have been the losers - they were totally out gunned - so it was predominantly English deaths you wanted to see. Not Iranian deaths. Of course Iranians would have died as well".

I can't see how you get from one statement to the other - either you are making assumptions that are simply not valid, your understanding of English is poor, you grasp of logic is weak or, sadly by far the most likely, you are simply choosing to deliberately make false assumptions and use invalid logic to get the result you want.

You wrote: You said something stupid. Now you've backtracked, so I'm happy.

I haven't backtracked so, if I said something stupid (or, to be precise something you regard as stupid) I'm probably still saying it.

Then you wrote "I still don't agree with your new position. You seem to be saying if the English Sailors had been killed in a shootout with a greater force it would have sent a signal to the Iranian's that they shouldn't mess with English Sailors.

The reality is that military decisions are made on slightly more rational grounds than "how hard the last guys fought back". The fact a RIB didn't fight back doesn't mean an Iranian boat armed with a 50cal or whatever it was will think it can capture a British Aircraft Carrier.

So we'd have lost a boat load of our guys for no reason at all."

Well that's a deliberately extreme version of exactly what I do think. You've fixated on the sailors being killed aspect - let me re-iterate part of my explanation:

"To take the latter first, you actually asked if people were happy with the outcome, to which I replied "No". I don't want anyone to die unnecessarily however. My definition of a "necessary" death is one that eliminates a serious threat to those I protect (i.e. my family and loved ones and of course myself) or a threat to my country. It's difficult to be more specific - like most things in life, it's a judgement call. To clarify, if the deaths of Iranian sailors had resulted in saving of British lives later then I would have been satisfied with that aspect of the outcome, although not with the fact that someone had died. I was very unimpressed with the general handling of the incident and the demeanour of the personnel - I was definitely unhappy with that aspect of the outcome."

Would firing at the vessel or the boarding party have resulted in the death of the RN crew - probably though there are a range of scenarios such as intervention by the RN warship or her helicopter. I would have thought that the RN Vessel would have had top cover so air cover was probably very quickly available.

If they were 100% comfortable that they were not in Iranian waters then air strikes against the Iranian vessel are a possibility. Yet again, just like the Chandlers there's loads of options but we get no action and end up with people in captivity and and enemy yet further convinced he's in total control and there's no significant threat.

Your comment "The reality is that military decisions are made on slightly more rational grounds than "how hard the last guys fought back"" shows how little understanding you have of how military decisions are made. The level of resistance and the value of the mission objective are the two key criteria in any engagement.

We now have to deal with the Iranians nuclear ambitions and we wonder why the only problem they see is Israel. Let's face it they aren't going to back down on the basis of what they've seen so far.

And the Chandlers, their captors will have seen how ineffective the RN can be so why should they worry.

Now do you understand my position and way of thinking?

This is descending to a level of pedantry and false assumptions that make postings pointless. I don't wish to have to post rebuttals all the time when such convenient misinterpretation and unsubtle spin is used. I wish to try and understand why others hold their viewpoint - not to be insulted.

The only thing that has changed my opinion on here has been the aggressive and devious behaviour of many who have taken a certain viewpoint - that of passive inaction. I am now convinced that I would not wish to be associated with people of that nature even if I ever did reach similar conclusions.
 
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