The Sounds of Silence

Voyage North

Ammunitioning Ship

Launch & Recover

Reviewed no more

In honour of her diamond jubilee, we present footage of the Spithead Review of the Fleet from her 1953 coronation and for her silver jubilee in 1977.

We'd show you footage of the one for the current celebration, but we can't because there isn't any.  Why?  Because there wasn't a review because the Royal Navy has suffered such appalling cuts that to mount a review of the pitifully few hulls available would be an exercise in national humiliation.

Time for a John Belushi-style rant, I think.

And the problem is...?

Ares headline:

U.K.'s F-35B Decision a Blow to Franco-British Defense Cooperation

All I can say is,

RESULT!

Another nail

Spithead Review: 1912

A hundred years ago, Britannia was undisputed mistress of the seas.  Now, we can't even keep one miserable frigate on patrol off Somalia.

Somewhere the shades of Drake, Nelson, Cochrane, Fisher and Churchill are shedding angry tears of flame.

Dressing ship

The Royal Navy shows of its new uniforms to the public and it's all blouses, Velcro, zip boots and baseball caps.

Baseball caps!  My Dad was in the RN for over thirty years and I only saw him in uniform once on duty or off, but this sort of Friday casual approach to naval attire would have killed him in a fit of pure apoplexy.  Updating uniforms and making them more practical does not mean turning them into something more suitable to the Girl Guides.

UK's next generation Wildcat helicopter completes sea trials

A Lynx Wildcat helicopter has completed 20 days of sea trials aboard the British frigate HMS Iron Duke in waters off southern England and northern Scotland. It was the latest in a series of trials required before the £16 million state-of-the-art combat aircraft can enter into active service with the British Army and the Royal Navy. The latest tests involved putting the helicopter through tests that involved over 400 day and nighttime take offs and landings from the Iron Duke in the worst weather conditions that could be found to put the mission systems, night-vision equipment and navigation systems through their paces... Continue Reading UK's next generation Wildcat helicopter completes sea trials

Galatians 6:7

Hit 'em with yer hand bag

Headline:

Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla

Britain The illegal junta that occupies Britain had to "beg" the US to allow the Royal Navy to be part of a task force to the Persian Gulf.  The American's contribution is a nuclear carrier group with a heavy cruiser, destroyers and full fighter cover.  This is only one of three groups the US Navy have in the area

Britain's mammoth contribution? HMS Argyll, a Type 23 frigate.

That's right: One frigate.

What a stinking end consecutive British governments and the current junta have led us to. In my father's day, we had the largest, most powerful navy in the world.  In my day, it was still a respectable second.  Today?  It's damn joke.  Now that traitor Mr Cameron is acting all surprised when Britain isn't being taken seriously any longer.

Well, sunshines, you had a choice between defending the realm and paying a load of chavs to sit on their backsides all day drinking lager while jumped up town clerks draw down fat pensions for the last three decades of their lives and you chose the latter.

I hope you're all proud.

Update: Now we couldn't even fight Libya.  Pathetic.

Britannia rising from the waves

I've been watching the current spat over building a new Britannia yacht for the Royal Family and I must admit that I'm in favour of it. True, when I first heard the idea, I thought it an absurdity in a time of "austerity" when the illegal junta that occupies Britain cuts all the wrong things while leaving the welfare state intact, but when it was pointed out that it was to be funded by private subscription, I was all for it.

The decommissioning of the old Britannia was a nasty, foolish, spiteful piece of class warfare that deprived the nation of a great asset. Replacing it would go a long way toward not only providing Her Majesty with a proper jubilee gift, but also to revive Britain's standing in the world.  Not to mention that the last Britannia also doubled as a hospital ship in time of war, so she had more than diplomatic or trade duties to perform.

In fact, I'd go a step further and use the Royal Family to justify other initiatives.  For example, no one questions the American Secret Service detail and the president's tank-like limousine.  What about an elite fighter squadron tasked with escorting the Queen when she flies (sort of like a Red Arrows with live ammo) and similar details to match whatever transport she's using at the moment?  Ostensibly, it would be a royal security detail, but it's real purpose would be to maintain an elite fighting force available in times of emergency.  It would be a wonderful way of protecting areas of the defence budget by making them "prestige" items that dare not be touched without insulting the nation and by making them practical rather than ceremonial guards we'd be putting a 21st century face on the honour guards that surround Her Majesty at Buck House et al.

At least one RN warship gets respect

HMS Victory undergoes a £16 million restoration.

It's good to see that they're taking care of the old girl. I always loved visiting her and I even have a chunk of her original oak taken from her last refit in the '80s that I one day hope to have carved into the rudder for a model of the great ship.

Operation Petticoat

You know what would really make these boats effective weapons?
Put women on them!

The Royal Navy is in a financial black hole, there's no fighter cover, no aircraft carriers until 2030 and then only one, the fleet is smaller than it was at any time since the Armada, there's no defence of home waters and warships go to sea unarmed.  But, by the powers, we're putting women on the submarines!

Our enemies are shaking in their boots... with laughter.

If the traitor David Cameron and the illegal junta that occupies Britain really wanted to strike a blow for feminism, maybe they should reconsider their priorities.

Britain defenceless until 2030

What we could be again, if we choose.

According to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Britain's two aircraft carriers (actually, only one because the other will never see service) won't be fully operational until 2030–and even then won't be up to the job.

This is intolerable and there is no reason for it.  For a small fraction of what we waste on the European Empire, "climate change" and Socialist nonsense, we could be fielding a half dozen carrier groups built around Nimitz-class equivalent nuclear supercarriers commissioned inside of ten years and not even feel the pinch.

Britain isn't in decline, she's being murdered.

Britain defenceless

Thanks to the insane budget cuts inflicted on the Royal Navy by Mr David Cameron's illegal junta, there is no longer a warship available to defend Britain's coasts.

We are right in it.

It gets worse

HMS Bulwark

On Monday, we reported that HMS Albion is going on "stand by" until 2016–which in MoD speak means her next port of call after will be the scrapyard.  But what we forgot to mention is that she was the Royal Navy's flagship.

It was already embarrassing enough that there isn't a capital ship to carry the flag, so it fell to an assault vessel.  The government had to rub salt into the wound by effectively decommissioning her. How could it get any worse?

Here's how:  The RN announces that her replacement as flagship is HMS Bulwark; another assault craft.

On stand by.

Lost at sea

The government is mothballing placing HMS Albion on "standby" until 2016 as a cost-cutting measure.

Why not?  It's not like wars pop up unexpectedly, is it?

Oh, wait...

Jackspeak

In an above board story, the BBC takes a new tack and shows us the ropes of Jackspeak.

I had the first edition of Mr Rick Jolly OBE's copper-bottom guide to Royal Navy slang and that's not just swinging the lead, so cop a shufti while I get myself a cuppa NATO standard, negative two.

Type 26

Britain is looking for international partners to develop the Royal Navy's Type 26 frigate.

This radical new warship is not only a sign that Whitehall isn't barking mad, but the fact that India and Brazil are being considered as partners makes me breathe a sigh of relief.  In recent decades, international partnerships meant kowtowing to our European "partners", which in plain language meant making Britain's defence a distant second to the much more important project of handing over as much sovereignty to Brussels as the Political Class could get away with in return for a weaker Britain.  The fact that India is now a possible partner means that there is a glimmer of hope at last.

If Britain does need international partners for anything, it should always be in, descending order,

a) Anglosphere nations
b) nobody else

Both spared?

There's a chance that the Royal Navy will place both Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers on active duty instead of mothballing HMS Prince of Wales literally before the paint dries.

Only a chance, but at least there's a glimmer of hope that Her Majesty's government has a room temperature IQ.