Yuku free message boards

Both developments sound like good news to me. As you say big money being saved on fuel, very important with the high price of oil at the moment. Additionally four MCMVs in the Gulf region is a good move in my opinion, moves the ships closer to where mines are more likely to be used and have been used in the past. Should give the ship's companies some decent practice whilst also proving the worth of having decent MCM forces in the Royal Navy. Five or six months in the Gulf with regular runs ashore in Dubai and Bahrain, without all the time spent on transit to and from the UK, sound like a decent draft to me!

Would it make sense to permanently station Endurance in the Falklands alongside Clyde? Suitable facilities around Stanley could probably be procured without to much difficulty if the same has already been done for the OPV(H). My only reservation on this issue is that somebody in the MoD (no offence intended Jimlad, another day another impossible decision - I get that) might take the opportunity to withdraw or gap APT(S).

Anyhow with more MCMVs in the Gulf would hopefully mean that at least one of the three Escorts currently in the Gulf could be withdrawn if they are there simply for presence.

I know its been brought up a few times on the board before but some limited overseas basing of ships, particularly minor warships might be worthwhile with money being tight.

Sorry Jimlad, I thought force generation planning work was carried out at Portsdown. Whilst I am aware that operational decisions will be taken at Excellent fundamental decision regarding how many ships the Royal Navy had to play with in the first place would feature some input from the MoD. Government allocates the Royal Navy a certain amount of cash, MoD in concert with Fleet decides how best to spend the operational budget. Pressures may be such that someone somewhere makes the call that APT(N) should be undertaken by a Bay class Ship or that as Clyde and Endurance are both in the South Atlantic if we keep our collective fingers crossed then we might not need to have an FF/DD in that part of the world quite so often as is currently the case. Perhaps it's Fleet who makes the decision or perhaps not, quite frankly I don't care who makes the decision, I personally think it would be a poor decision ignoring historical precedent as well as the virtues of poise and presence that a proper warship can bring to a situation.

It isn't the fault of the MoD that the Royal Navy has its hands tied by a poor operational budget, I do understand that but I am deeply concerned that overstretch will actually cause the Royal Navy to cease being a viable fighting force. If APT(S) gets gapped (regardless of who gaps it - doubtless their heart is in the right place) then someone somewhere might see it as an opportunity to lose a Frigate or Destroyer in order to save half the MCMV force or allow greater flying hours for the Lynx's across the Fleet.

I'm pretty sure there's a Defence White paper in the works, if that paper doesn't either (a) rationalise commitments and expectations of the current force or (b) enlarge the force to meet commitments the Royal Navy will break either under the strain of optimistic tasking and overstretch or simply be unable to meet its commitments - a situation which might possibly lead to political or military disaster.