Royal Navy - Caribbean - your thoughts?

[E CLASS]

Just been watching this on Channel 5.

I can't immediately think of a bigger waste of resources than the deployment of HMS Manchester to be sailing around the Caribbean looking for drugs boats.

Don't get me wrong a worthy cause however they can only be intercepting a nano fraction of contraband for a colossal cost to the UK tax payer.

Hilarious moments in the programme;

Having unleashed all the fire power of the warship (all 5,000 tonnes of it) at an abandoned fibre glass 'go fast' - (drugs boat) they came across they could not sink it - they resorted to boarding it and sawing it up and chopping it with an axe - they then resorted to pouring petrol on it and setting it alight.

Second hilarious moment - was when having apprehended a go fast - this time full of drugs - the Columbian navy could not be bothered to meet them so they had to sail for 4 days to reach Columbia all the time escorting this tiny boat that they could not board.


What fricking waste of time and our money.

That tub should be brought back to the UK pronto.

They should be sailing the Channel looking for illegals...

 

[trapperjohn]

I seem to remember the RAF could nothit the Torry Canyon (probably spelt that wrong) when it hit rocks in the channel. Thats the English Channel BTW.

 

[Charles Morgan]

That is the last patrol. They have now been cancelled permanently for pretty much the reasons you cite.

 

[Dryce]

Hilarious moments in the programme;

Indeed

 

[BTB 500]

Presumably it was at least partly justified on 'training' grounds? Think that was the case with Belize (for example).

 

[kwakdonut]

We've still got some ships left???????????

 

[grober]

We've still got some ships left???????????

2 AIRCRAFT CARRIERS [ without aircraft of course] to come. You couldn't make it up could you?

 

[bingo999]

Im in the navy, it seems where im sitting thats its all going to rack and ruin! your complaint about the navy being in the carribean stopping drug runners, well thats what we do in the gulf and the indian ocean too! the Army in Afghanastan are there fighjting a war on drugs not terror, afghan is the biggest grower of cannabis. so you want the navy out of the carribean then pull the army out of afghan and let this country get as much drugs as we can get our hands on! nuff said.

 

[Charles Morgan]

Anybody who wishes to read why the Armed Forces are in such a mess should read Lewis Page's Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs. Written by an ex RN Officer (but in the wrong branch ever to reach high command levels) and published in 2006 it is a coruscating account of inter-service fighting, hugely expensive procurement disasters, political cynicism and feebleness and gross failure by senior officers and civil servants.

 

[kwakdonut]

Anybody who wishes to read why the Armed Forces are in such a mess should read Lewis Page's Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs. Written by an ex RN Officer (but in the wrong branch ever to reach high command levels) and published in 2006 it is a coruscating account of inter-service fighting, hugely expensive procurement disasters, political cynicism and feebleness and gross failure by senior officers and civil servants.

Can agree with you there. Procurement has been the biggest waste of taxpayers money ever with some of the hugest White Elephant's you will ever see (or not as the case now is!)

Meanwhile, at the end that matters (serving and fighting soldiers, sailors and airmen) morale is at an all-time low with everything being cut to the bone; no pay rise for two years (and with loss and reduction of allowances, makes it a pay-drop) and equipment that truly is not up to the job, the rush for redundancies when they come out very shortly, will leave all three forces exceedingly short of what they truly need - experienced, well-trained and happy personnel.