Royal Navy

[Bolovo]

Lembrem-se que o CVF britânico é um programa conjunto o PA2 francês. Qualquer atraso em um também afeta o outro.

[P44]

Lembrem-se que o CVF britânico é um programa conjunto o PA2 francês. Qualquer atraso em um também afeta o outro.

se não me falha a memória o Sarkozy já tinha adiado a "decisão" acerca do PA2 para 2012, e isto muito antes da crise.

E já agora alguém avise os hermanos

Falkland Islands to be left without warship

The Falkland Islands are to be left without the protection of a British warship for the first time since the war with Argentina because the Royal Navy no longer has enough ships to meet all its commitments.



Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:32PM GMT 07 Dec 2008


HMS Northumberland has been pulled off Falkland duties because of Navy outstretch


The frigate HMS Northumberland, which is armed with guided missiles, torpedoes and a Lynx helicopter, was due to be sent on patrol to the islands this month. But it will now be replaced by a Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) vessel not equipped for offensive combat operations.
The controversial decision was forced on senior naval commanders by the increasing problem of overstretch facing the Royal Navy.
Cuts to the size of the fleet over the last 10-years – the Royal Navy has just 22 frigates and destroyers compared to 65 in 1982 – has left the service with too few ships to meet its responsibilities.
The Telegraph also understands that the Royal Navy is likely to face more cuts in the near future while major projects such as the £3.9bn new carrier programme could be delayed. Ageing vessels such as Type 23 frigates, which were commissioned in the late 1980s, will have their service life extended by up to 20-years.
The last time the British government reduced its naval presence in the South Atlantic was in 1982 when the ice patrol vessel HMS Endurance was withdrawn from patrolling the area around the Falkland Islands. The move prompted an invasion by the Argentine military and led to the Falklands War.
HMS Northumberland was due to begin a six-month voyage in the South Atlantic but has been diverted to take part in the European Union counter-piracy mission off the coast of east Africa.
In its place, RFA Largs Bay, a landing ship which is crewed by civilian sailors, will arrive in the South Atlantic this week to begin its mission of protecting the islands from the potential threat posed by Argentina, which still claims sovereignty of the islands.
The vessel will be equipped with a Lynx Mark 8 helicopter and Sea Skua anti ship missiles for self-defence. The landing ship has a small number of Royal Navy sailors who are responsible for manning a helicopter flight deck as well as a boarding party made up of lightly-armed Royal Marines but Royal Navy sources have said that the ship would be able to do little more than protect itself in the event of an emergency.
The size of the military force on the Falklands has been dramatically reduced since the end of the war in 1982. The islands are garrisoned by just 50 soldiers, composed of infantry, engineers and signallers. The RAF has four Tornado F3 air defence aircraft and crews to maintain them while the naval component consists of just one ship.
The Royal Navy has some 22 frigates and destroyers in the fleet, however only a third are available for operations at any one time and the seven currently available for operational service are already taking part in deployments.
One senior naval source said that successive cuts by the government had left the Royal Navy vulnerable and unable to properly defend its interests overseas.
He said: "The Royal Navy has been pared to the bone. The fleet is now so small that the Royal Navy can't even send a proper warship to guard the Falklands. By the time the Royal Navy has met all of its operational obligations there is nothing left and that is why a civilian-crewed Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship has been sent to the Falklands.
"In any shooting war with a serious enemy the Royal Navy would cease to exist within a few weeks. Rock bottom is an appropriate description of where the Royal Navy now is."
A Ministry of Defence document leaked to The Telegraph last year revealed that the Royal Navy would struggle to fight a war against a "technologically capable adversary". The report also stated that the Royal Navy was an "under-resourced" fleet composed of "ageing and operationally defective ships".
Admiral Sir Alan West, a former Chief of the Naval Staff, and who is a security minister in the Lords, has previously warned that the reduction in the fighting capability of the Royal navy could cost lives and gave warning that Britain would end up with a "tinpot" Navy if more money were not spent on defence.
Liam Fox, the shadow Tory defence spokesman, said: "The Government needs to explain how this won’t impact on the security of the Falklands. What on earth are we doing putting EU flag waving ahead of our own security priorities?
"It is outrageous that the British Government would ever diminish the protection of our strategic interests in order to pay homage to the politics of the EU."
A spokesman for the MoD, said: "The government is fully committed to the defence of the Falkland Islands. There is a whole package of assets – air, sea and land assigned to the region, not simply one ship. The Royal Navy maintains the flexibility to redeploy its ships to where they will have maximum effect."

[gaitero]

Pena que os hermanos estão em uma ainda pior

[P44]

para um RFA até uma corvetazeca deve chegar...

[gaitero]

[P44]

e que tal adiá-los indefinidamente?????

Carriers delay 'good for yards'

The carriers were scheduled to enter service in 2014 and 2016
A delay to the start of a £4bn project to build two new Royal Navy aircraft carriers would be good news for Scots shipyards, according to a Labour MP.

The Defence Secretary is due to issue a ministerial statement, amid speculation that their entry into service could be delayed as the MoD tries to cut costs.

Ian Davidson, who represents Glasgow South West, said if the order was spun out, the yards would be in work longer.

Union officials said it was vital there was no delay in the work's start date.

Work on the aircraft carriers - HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales - had been due to begin next spring.

They were scheduled to enter service in 2014 and 2016 but reports suggest Defence Secretary John Hutton could delay this by two years.

The announcement will affect shipyards in Appledore, in north Devon, Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness, Glasgow and Rosyth.

Contracts worth about £3.2bn were signed in July and the work was expected to create or underpin a total of 10,000 jobs at the yards.


By the end of the afternoon I would expect Jamie Webster and the other shop stewards to be holding hands and skipping together down Govan Road



But Mr Hutton told MPs this week there would be a new announcement on defence spending.

Mr Davidson said he had been reassured by discussions with the defence secretary.

"The good news is that the biggest naval order since the Second World War will remain in place," he said.

"The better news in my view is that the order is going to be spun out, which means that the yards will be in work longer.

"What's likely to happen is that there will be less sub-contract work and more done in-house."

He said he had been critical of the programme previously put forward, because all the UK shipbuilding facilities "were likely to be full and it was probable that some work would have to go abroad".

'Sack people'

"Now, if we spin this out, a lot of work will be done in sequence rather than simultaneously - which means that more work will be done in the UK and in Scottish yards," he said.

"There is no suggestion that the companies that will build the carriers will have to sack people and then take them back on again.

"Measures will be put into place which means the work will be maintained in the yards and workers will have an assurance that their jobs will be secure."

Jamie Webster, the GMB union convenor at the Govan shipyard, said: "If the programme is being stretched over a longer period of time because of budget reasons, I wouldn't be surprised at that, and it would not pose a problem.

"But it's important that there's not a delay in the starting date - if there was, that delay would have to be minimal.

"If we're not starting the ship at the same time as we should, which is next March, that's something that we'll have to look very carefully at with the company, bearing in mind that the steel's already being delivered to Govan and that it fits in with their current programme."

'Greatly diminished'

He added: "If the announcement says that the work will be stretched out I don't see it hindering us, we'll just re-adjust our programme.

"It might prevent some recruitment which we intended in the future."

Mr Davidson insisted there was a greater degree of job security for Scottish shipyard workers than for staff in any other industry in the UK.

"If the carriers are spun out, that the gap between the end of this order and the next order is likely to be greatly diminished," he said.

"That makes it much more likely that we're going to be able to offer continuity of work well into 2020 and beyond.

"How many people in Britain today can have a guarantee of work beyond 2020?"

"By the end of the afternoon I would expect Jamie Webster and the other shop stewards to be holding hands and skipping together down Govan Road."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scot ... 777065.stm

[P44]

ora aí está...a crise

Carriers to enter service late


The two new carriers would be the biggest in Royal Navy history

Defence Secretary John Hutton has said that the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers are likely to enter service a year or two later than planned.

In a statement to MPs, he added there would be no delay in construction - but work would continue at a slower pace, sustaining jobs for longer.

The £4bn shipbuilding project is due to begin next spring.

The announcement affects shipyards in Appledore, in north Devon, Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness, Glasgow and Rosyth.

'Workforce stability'

Mr Hutton said: "We have concluded that there is scope for bringing more closely into line the introduction of the Joint Combat Aircraft and the aircraft carrier. This is likely to mean delaying the in-service date of the new carriers by one to two years.

"We are in close consultation with the Aircraft Carrier Alliance on how this might best be done. Construction is already under way and will continue.

"The programme will still provide stability for the core shipyard workforce, including 10,000 UK jobs."

Des Browne gave the green light for the construction of HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales in May, when he was defence secretary. Contracts worth about £3.2bn were signed in July.

'Financial chaos'

BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the government did not view cancelling major defence projects as an option, but considered delays as a way of controlling the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) spiralling budget.

Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock, a member of the Commons Defence Committee, said the MoD was in financial "chaos".

Meanwhile, hundreds of jobs in Somerset are to be secured due to a new government order for 62 Future Lynx helicopters from Agusta Westland, BBC West has learned.

An immediate contract will also be awarded to upgrade existing Lynx helicopters to prepare them for battlefield sites such as Afghanistan.

The order, worth £1bn, has been delayed for more than two years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7776695.stm

[gaitero]

Verá a crise, se o Governo Brasileiro não tomar algumas medidas.

Pelo que eu aprendi nessa ultima semana acompanhando o seminário que está acontecendo aqui em minha cidade.

Seriam estas, no mínimo:

centralizar o cãmbo em uma instituição nacional forte, que seria esta aqui em baixo.
unificar o Banco do Brasil,Caixa econômica e BNDES
reduzir as taxas de juros
desenvolver o quanto mais rápido o PAC
aumentar o salário mínimo

[P44]

em compensação o governo francês decidiu avançar para a construção de um 3º BPC MISTRAL, para revitalizar a economia

[P44]

a RAF e a RN ás turras por causa dos novos PAs....

Ex-Defence chief in call to cut new aircraft carrier order down to one

UK should consider cutting its order for new aircraft carriers from two to one because of pilot shortages, a former armed forces head said today.

Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig of Radley, chief of the defence staff at the time of the first Gulf War, said the Defence Ministry's autumn performance report showed "shortfalls approaching 49% of junior Fleet Air Arm harrier pilots and over 57% of experienced RAF harrier instructors".

Lord Craig asked at Lords question time: "Will this not seriously jeopardise the Fleet Air Arm's ability to provide the fast jet command and leadership required to operate their full fleet of F-35s in the coming decade.

"Has not the time come to be realistic, to halve the number of these aircraft to be procured by the Fleet Air Arm and to limit the carrier order to just one vessel?"

Defence minister Baroness Taylor of Bolton had earlier said the Government would decide early next year whether to buy F-35 Lightning II aircraft, which are being developed in the joint strike fighter programme, to allow the UK to carry out testing alongside the US.

She told Lord Craig: "We do intend to have two carriers. There is pressure on the harriers at present and that is one of the reasons why they are being replaced by tornados in Afghanistan to try to release the burden of continuous operation and activity there."

Lady Taylor added: "We do have a programme for training pilots and we have made some significant progress ... We can be confident we will be using the best pilots possible in all our fleet."

The full article contains 284 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/uk/ExDe ... 4806300.jp

[soultrain]

HER MAJESTY'S ROYAL COAST GUARD


David Axe reports:

Under current plans, the Royal Navy circa 2020 will be a very strange force. There will be just six high-end warships to protect two 65,000-ton super-carriers, plus a mixed flotilla of old Type 23s and FSCs numbering just over a dozen. It’ll be a top-heavy force with too few destroyers to escort the carriers into a shooting war, and too few frigates to perform day-to-day patrolling during peacetime. It’s a fleet optimized for nothing.

For the past few decades, Her Majesty's Armed Forces have steered away from the preservation of empire and colonies, instead configuring themselves in such a way that they can provide a solid bulwark to the US Armed Forces, while operating independently in a single theater, Falklands style scenario.

But, the backbone of any British strategy -from the pre-Victorian age all the way up until the Labour Party victory in the mid 1990s- has always been a powerful Royal Navy. The fleet's demise over the past several years has been one of the great tragedies in recent memory. There was a time when the Union Jack protected every major sea lane and trade route on the globe -- today the British can barely protect their own coastline. That's a terrible fall for what was once a mighty sea-faring empire.

What's troubling about this report, to me at least, is that the Brits are shaping their fleet in such a way that it will be largely reliant on American protection. Instead of existing as a powerful, independent ally that can operate jointly or independently with its US counterpart, the Royal Navy is becoming a welfare case -- where supporting it with anti-sub and anti-air protection becomes more of a drain on our own resources than a benefit.

Watching the British lose confidence in themselves, the oft-lamented "Suez Syndrome," is terrible. But, as much as it pains me to say so, perhaps it's time we look for new, stronger allies for our special defense relationship -- perhaps in the Aussies or Japanese.

--John Noonan

HT - Goldfarb

February 27, 2009 11:41 AM

[P44]

alguém vai ter uma apoplexia

[soultrain]

Nuclear Subs Didn't Know They'd Hit Each Other
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 17 Feb 16:32 EST (21:32 GMT) PRINT | EMAIL
PARIS - Britain and France's nuclear submarines are so stealthy and their movements so secret that when a pair rammed into each other their crews had no idea what had happened, France said Feb. 17.

"These submarines are undetectable, they make less noise than a shrimp," said Defense Minister Herve Morin when asked how such sophisticated vessels could have collided earlier this month amid the vastness of the North Atlantic.

The unprecedented accident has raised questions about whether the allies could have better coordinated their patrols, and whether France's imminent return to the NATO command structure might improve safety.

But defense officials said the movements of nuclear ballistic submarines - which are designed to be undetectable - are national secrets and that closer cooperation would be an extremely sensitive proposition.

Officials in the French naval staff, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that France already coordinates the patrol zones of its hunter killer subs with its allies, but that the nuclear missile fleet was separate.

Allied headquarters in Brussels houses officers and diplomats from dozens of countries and is considered prone to security leaks, making NATO members reluctant to share news about their most strategic ships.

"Nuclear deterrent is purely national, there are never exchanges on nuclear ballistic vessels," one French officer said.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai agreed. "NATO has no role in managing the movement of this class and type of submarine for any NATO nation," he said.

A Western diplomat attached to the Allied Headquarters in Brussels said that therefore France's membership or otherwise in the command structure had no bearing on the cause of the accident.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has already said that France's return to the NATO military command will have no bearing on its independent nuclear arsenal, and Morin insisted on the unprecedented nature of the accident.

So unusual, in fact, that at first the crews were not sure what happened.

"As soon as the incident occurred, the submarine's commander surfaced and said 'I have hit something. I think it was a container so I am heading back to Brest," Morin told French television.

"It's when we reported the incident that the British - who had just learned from their commander that there had been a problem - said: 'Well hey, we also had a problem'," he explained.

"The British came to inspect our submarine and they concluded that something happened between them."

Nevertheless, one NATO officer told AFP that there would have to be an inquiry into the cause of the crash, insisting: "Just saying it was pure bad luck is not good enough."

Morin downplayed suggestions the subs may have been carrying out special maneuvers and rejected allegations the French navy had sought to hide the incident from the public until it surfaced Feb. 16 in the British press.

Both vessels involved in the crash - Le Triomphant and HMS Vanguard - are among the latest generation of Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN) submarines and specifically designed to avoid being found.

While attack subs risk detection by sending out sonar pulses to detect enemy vessels, SSBNs lurk in the deep, running quietly, in order to be able to launch a surprise nuclear attack in the event of war.

France has maintained a sea-based nuclear deterrent force since 1971 and currently has three nuclear-armed submarines in operation. A fourth is undergoing sea trials and will come into service next year.

HMS Vanguard, launched in 1992, is one of four British nuclear submarines, one of which is always on deterrent patrol.

Both countries maintain that this month's accident did not compromise nuclear safety on board the vessels and had had no effect on the countries' nuclear counterstrike capability.

[gusmano]

Que me perdoem os hermanos...

Mas nas falklands é fácil resolver, poem lá um bote e 6 marujos e pronto. Tá garantido a segurança!!

[]´s

[P44]

Warship missile system delayed

By Sylvia Pfeifer, Defence Industries Correspondent

Published: March 13 2009 02:14 | Last updated: March 13 2009 02:14

The Royal Navy’s new Type 45 destroyers will initially have to go to sea without their main anti-aircraft missile system, the National Audit Office warns on Friday, in the latest sign of strain in the government’s procurement process.

The programme for the six vessels is also running at least two years late and nearly £1.5bn ($2.1bn) over its original budget of £5bn.

The delays mean the Ministry of Defence will have to keep operating five ageing Type 42 destroyers, first designed during the cold war, at an estimated extra cost of £195m, says the report.

The Whitehall spending watchdog says at one stage during the procurement process, problems led to a breakdown in relations between the MoD and the original main contractor – formerly BAE Systems, now BVT Surface Fleet, a joint venture of BAE’s and VT Group’s shipbuilding operations. This eventually led to a contract renegotiation.

Type 45 destroyers are designed to protect the naval fleet, providing air defence and performing tasks such as supporting forces ashore.

The NAO goes on to warn that the decision to halve the original procurement from 12 to eight and finally to six destroyers means the MoD faces a challenge if it is to meet its policy requirement of always having five ships available for deployment at any one time.

The total cost of the programme is now estimated at £6.46bn – a 29 per cent increase.

Under the initial contract, the first ship was originally due to enter service in November 2007. That was renegotiated in 2007 and the MoD is now working towards a first entry into service of December 2009.

However, the ship, HMS Daring, will not get its main anti-air missile system until mid-2011, although the MoD believes it could be deployed if necessary. The report also notes that the department had always planned that several pieces of equipment would be installed incrementally once the ships are operational.

Despite its criticisms, the NAO acknowledges that since the renegotiation, “management of the project is now much improved” and no delays have been reported.

Although noting the programme was now running more smoothly, Edward Leigh, chairman of the public accounts committee, said there was a “familiar ring about a major MoD equipment procurement which begins with over-optimism about costs and timescales and commercial arrangements failing to reflect the risks, and ends with costs soaring, significant delays to delivery and ageing existing equipment having to be patched up until the new kit becomes operational”.

Quentin Davies, minister for defence equipment and support, said: “These are complex, sophisticated warships and where problems arose in the early stages MoD gripped the issue, renegotiated contracts where required and got the programme on track.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0b2941ea-0f5b ... ck_check=1