HMS Iron Duke firing a Harpoon missile CREDIT: ROYAL NAVY
Posted on 11/16/2016 5:33:26 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Royal Navy warships will be left without anti-ship missiles and be forced to rely on naval guns because of cost-cutting, the Ministry of Defence has admitted.
The Navy’s Harpoon missiles will retire from the fleet’s frigates and destroyers in 2018 without a replacement, while there will also be a two year gap without helicopter-launched anti-shipping missiles.
Naval sources said the decision was “like Nelson deciding to get rid of his cannons and go back to muskets” and one senior former officer said warships would "no longer be able to go toe-to-toe with the Chinese or Russians".
Harpoon missiles are unlikely to be replaced for up to a decade, naval sources said, leaving warships armed only with their 4.5in Mk 8 guns for anti-ship warfare. Helicopter-launched Sea Skua missiles are also going out of service next year and the replacement Sea Venom missile to be carried by Wildcat helicopters will not arrive until late 2020.
One Naval source said: “We will be losing our missile capability in total for two years. We will still have the gun, but the range of that is about 17 miles, compared to Harpoon, which is about 80 miles”.
The source said the new helicopter-launched Sea Venom missile will have a shorter range than the Harpoon and helicopters are also vulnerable to bad weather and being shot down.
“The moment you put it up against a frigate or a destroyer, you will be inside their weapons range,” the source added.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
HMS Iron Duke firing a Harpoon missile CREDIT: ROYAL NAVY
“Naval sources said the decision was “like Nelson deciding to get rid of his cannons and go back to muskets”
On the brighter side, using sails will reduce their carbon footprint.
Brits have a history of making bad decisions like this, like cancelling the TSR, or deciding that manned interceptors are obsolete because of SAMs.
Socialism kills societies.
One of the function of a nation is defense for its people.
Socialism sucks up all available money to the point that many of the prime functions of a government do not get done (maintaining the military for one and the infrastructure of the nation for another).
Once a government decides to provide the basic necessities of life for its citizens it is doomed.
I am not sure what is worse, robbing one citizen to give to another or robbing their citizens of the dignity of being self sufficient.
When Great Britain finds itself in a real war again, wishing they had cut social spending in favor of a strong defense will not do them any good as they lose the war.
They should issue sling shots to troops, rocks are way cheaper
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Sic transit gloria mundi.
Yet another sad, pathetic step in the march from mighty empire to cap-in-hand beggar. Have you ever seen a wealthy country give itself away to barbarian invaders before, on a silver platter? What the heck is wrong with Europeans?
No planes for their carriers and no missiles.
They are just targets.
Never in the field of human conflict have so FEW wasted the sacrifices of so MANY.
Sorry, Sir Winston.
Tell me why we’re in NATO?
Because it gives the US dollar the status of the world reserve currency. It allows the USA to have the foreign debt like it has.
Just what we need, to spend money so that we can borrow money.
G.B. as she once was is on life support. It is sad to see. Very good summation of socialism. This was directly where we were headed after Obama if Clinton won.
The British government are generally completely incompetent when it comes to defence policy. They scrapped their only aircraft carrier (without having a substitute for years), they sold off all the Harrier jump-jets (after spending a fortune upgrading them), they used the hopeless SA80 assault rifle instead of the M16-A2 or the HK MP-5, they declared that they were removing HMS Endurance from the South Atlantic station (the year before the Argentinians invaded the Falkland Islands). "Lions led by donkeys" as the old saying goes.
Well, if you look at the USS Zumwalt, we are not doing so well either. They don’t have any ammo for their new guns; and there is not going to be any more produced.
Then there is the F-35.
That is what happens when you defense industry is about distibuting graft and favors rather building weapons.
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