The Shrunken Royal Navy

[jjb1970]

The Bluray HD restoration of The Longest Day is an excellent example of how modern technology and HD can be applied to old movies and b&w, they did a superb job. 

[alastairq]

Good grief! An inshore minesweeper!  My year [three terms] at Reardon Smith Nautical College saw the acquisition, cleaning up, maintenance etc of the Margherita, an ex navy inshore minesweeper.  Oh happy days!

[Ben B]

Left-hand down a bit... ;)

 

(I've been re-listening to the Navy Lark on my drives to and from work recently)

[KeithMacdonald]

I'm trying to remember what was frequently moored at Jupiter Point on the Lynher, just north of Devonport. I've been past it enough times, I ought to remember its name.  Wasn't that one of the Hunt-class minesweepers? Or was it some other patrol vessel?

 

It is still visible via Google Maps street view.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.3939279,-4.2339855,3a,55.5y,126.4h,91.18t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s0aG_QGSjF2DuTVJX2WjfWw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D0aG_QGSjF2DuTVJX2WjfWw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D11.5595255%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&coh=205409&entry=ttu

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

7 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The Bluray HD restoration of The Longest Day is an excellent example of how modern technology and HD can be applied to old movies and b&w, they did a superb job. 

The best bit about that film is Richard Todd playing John Howard. Todd having met Howard on the afternoon of D-Day when he arrived at Pegasus bridge with reinforcements. 

 

[jjb1970]

3 hours ago, Ben B said:

Left-hand down a bit... ;)

 

(I've been re-listening to the Navy Lark on my drives to and from work recently)

 

It's classic comedy, brilliant scripts delivered by a stellar cast. The crazy thing is a lot of the underlying themes really haven't dated.

[jjb1970]

8 minutes ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

The best bit about that film is Richard Todd playing John Howard. Todd having met Howard on the afternoon of D-Day when he arrived at Pegasus bridge with reinforcements. 

 

 

I believe Stephen Ambrose got into a bit of trouble over plagiarism but his book on Pegasus Bridge is superb and well worth a read. One of the outstanding commando type actions of the war, the glider pilots achieved a tremendous feat of airmanship delivering their passengers so accurately. 

[KeithMacdonald]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

It's classic comedy, brilliant scripts delivered by a stellar cast. The crazy thing is a lot of the underlying themes really haven't dated.

 

There's a good index to the series and episodes here: https://thenavylark.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Seasons

 

I've helped with links to the individual episodes I can find on Youtube.

[Bon Accord]

3 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

I'm trying to remember what was frequently moored at Jupiter Point on the Lynher, just north of Devonport. I've been past it enough times, I ought to remember its name.  Wasn't that one of the Hunt-class minesweepers? Or was it some other patrol vessel?

 

It is still visible via Google Maps street view.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.3939279,-4.2339855,3a,55.5y,126.4h,91.18t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s0aG_QGSjF2DuTVJX2WjfWw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D0aG_QGSjF2DuTVJX2WjfWw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D11.5595255%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&coh=205409&entry=ttu

 

 

She's the former Brecon; since being decommissioned in 2005 she's now used as a static training vessel with HMS Raleigh.

Dartmouth college also has a similar vessel, in their case the former Sandown class vessel Cromer, now renamed Hindostan.

[Ben B]

10 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

It's classic comedy, brilliant scripts delivered by a stellar cast. The crazy thing is a lot of the underlying themes really haven't dated.

 

I noticed that- it was a comment in a series 2 episode by CPO Pertwee about "the cost of living crisis" that struck a jarring, 2024 chord! What goes around, and all that...

[KeithMacdonald]

Poor old Fatso Johnson was usually on the receiving end of it all.

 

 

But the price of beer was a lot less?

 

[woodenhead]

Lets ask the enemy to update our staff intranet site:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/britains-nuclear-submarine-software-designed-russia-belarus/

[jjb1970]

I'm guessing it's the tip of an ice berg.

[KeithMacdonald]

I think RFA Proteus and RFA Stirling Castle were commended here when the RN first acquired them? Sadly it turns out they've hardly been used since then. Because...

 

Quote

the more pressing reason for pausing Stirling Castle is the wider personnel crisis being experienced by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Since we last reported on this downward spiral in May, the situation has not improved with sailors continuing to leave while not recruiting enough trainees or qualified seafarers. There is a particular shortage of certificated personnel with technical skills, especially marine engineers and masters.

 

Also

 

Quote

The root causes of these delays, errors and inability to get former commercial vessels more rapidly into service are complex. An insider told Navy Lookout: “The list of failures is long, starting with DE&S acquisitions. The people involved in procurement had limited experience of buying second-hand ships and underestimated the expensive planned maintenance that was due. The previous RFA commodore accepted the ships when there were not the people to crew them properly and an inadequate budget line to support them financially. Mission statements were unclear, all ‘back of a fag packet’ stuff.”

 

Why?

 

Quote

Essentially there has been a failure to properly follow through with what the MoD formally calls Defence Lines of Development. DLoDs are the wrap-around structures that need to be brought together to enable military capability, having eight core elements: training, equipment, people, infrastructure, doctrine, organisation, information and logistics.

 

https://www.navylookout.com/setbacks-in-the-royal-navys-effort-to-get-newly-acquired-auxiliary-ships-into-service/

[KeithMacdonald]

I hereby nominate @jjb1970 to take over DE&S acquisitions.

[jjb1970]

39 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

I hereby nominate @jjb1970 to take over DE&S acquisitions.

 

They can't afford me🤣🤣

 

I wouldn't be surprised if that is one of the problems on the two new RFA ships, DPOs have a market value and can be very well paid in the offshore segment on short rotas with better than 1:1 leave. 

[KeithMacdonald]

It might be grimly reassuring to know that the personnel shortage is not unique to the RFA.
 

Quote

 

Military Sealift Command has drafted a plan to remove the crews from 17 Navy support ships due to a lack of qualified mariners to operate the vessels across the Navy, USNI News learned. The MSC “force generation reset” identified two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases that would enter an “extended maintenance” period and have their crews retasked to other ships in the fleet, three people familiar with the plan told USNI News Thursday. Based on the crew requirements on the platforms, sideling all the ships could reduce the civilian mariner demand for MSC by as many as 700 billets.

 

 

https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/sealift-takes-a-dump-the-us-navy-continues-to-degrade/

[burgundy]

Frustrating that someone seems to have forgotten the Lines of Development, which have been around for 20 years. And, at the risk of being fair to the DE&S, providing sufficient warm bodies is not one of its responsibilities.

Best wishes 

Eric 

[jjb1970]

Both the US and UK (and quite a few other countries) face issues with maintaining a pool of seafarers. In commercial shipping pay is a major expense and there's a cut throat market to provide crews for lower costs which undercut those from developed countries. However in some ways a more fundamental issue is that even putting that (huge elephant) to one side it's difficult to attract young people to sea going careers.

 

At various times I've been asked to get involved with 'selling' the merchant navy (the source of crews for MSC in the US and the UK RFA) to youngsters and always declined. The merchant navy has given me an excellent career, but aside from always feeling uncomfortable about offering career advice (the vast majority of advice is more about justifying the advisors own choices in life than what makes sense for young people in my experience) I don't feel able to promote the industry to people today.

 

I don't want to look back on the past with rose tinted glasses as there was plenty to dislike about the industry when I was at sea, but I was an MNTB cadet and there was an expectation I'd be offered a job at the end of it. And during training my sponsor (P&O Containers) did provide training, my sea phase wasn't just ticking a box to ensure the company still qualified for tonnage tax benefits. Now I hear so many horror stories about tonnage tax cadets basically left to their own devices at sea and for which there is zero intention of being offered jobs at the end of it. And the life has changed, again I don't want to look back with rose tinted glasses and there was always a significant element who hated being at sea, egging the question of why they were there (but that's another story) but the average was to try and enjoy it. There was a social life onboard. Now most seafarers I meet view time away as a black hole to be endured because the alternatives are worse and a transient phase necessary to build experience to get a shore job in the industry. I don't feel comfortable with the idea of encouraging youngsters into such an industry.

 

And for the matter at hand I always objected to the way seafarer unions and advocates always used the national security argument to claim the industry needed support. I recognize the argument is grounded in a real issue of maintaining sufficient seafarers to meet needs in the event of a war. Not just the MSC and RFA, but to man ships needed to carry supplies and potentially personnel to top up the USN and RN etc. However I was a merchant seaman, I wasn't in the RN or RFA and had zero interest in being militarized short of an existential threat to Britain (i.e. not the various expeditionary wars so popular with our great leaders) and I hated my union pretending I was some sort of quasi-military asset in waiting.

[KeithMacdonald]

I have to confess all the RFA people I ever knew are dead, retired, have sailed off over the horizon into other careers, or I've just lost touch with them. So I have no up-to-date knowledge any more on how the RFA would handle (say) a mini-Falklands style event. Do the contingency plans still rely on co-opting transport from trade?

 

Some might say this inability to fulfil logistics is a good thing. We will still have a clique of politicos keen to start wars, and make sound-bite click-bait headlines to make themselves seem important. But, given recent experiences, this might be one arena where we should be very grateful they promise a lot but they can actually deliver very little.

[billbedford]

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Some might say this inability to fulfil logistics is a good thing. We will still have a clique of politicos keen to start wars, and make sound-bite click-bait headlines to make themselves seem important.

 

Nar, it just makes them ignore Monty's first rule of fighting in Europe. 

[Bon Accord]

On 02/09/2024 at 06:36, jjb1970 said:

Both the US and UK (and quite a few other countries) face issues with maintaining a pool of seafarers. In commercial shipping pay is a major expense and there's a cut throat market to provide crews for lower costs which undercut those from developed countries. However in some ways a more fundamental issue is that even putting that (huge elephant) to one side it's difficult to attract young people to sea going careers.

 

At various times I've been asked to get involved with 'selling' the merchant navy (the source of crews for MSC in the US and the UK RFA) to youngsters and always declined. The merchant navy has given me an excellent career, but aside from always feeling uncomfortable about offering career advice (the vast majority of advice is more about justifying the advisors own choices in life than what makes sense for young people in my experience) I don't feel able to promote the industry to people today.

 

I don't want to look back on the past with rose tinted glasses as there was plenty to dislike about the industry when I was at sea, but I was an MNTB cadet and there was an expectation I'd be offered a job at the end of it. And during training my sponsor (P&O Containers) did provide training, my sea phase wasn't just ticking a box to ensure the company still qualified for tonnage tax benefits. Now I hear so many horror stories about tonnage tax cadets basically left to their own devices at sea and for which there is zero intention of being offered jobs at the end of it. And the life has changed, again I don't want to look back with rose tinted glasses and there was always a significant element who hated being at sea, egging the question of why they were there (but that's another story) but the average was to try and enjoy it. There was a social life onboard. Now most seafarers I meet view time away as a black hole to be endured because the alternatives are worse and a transient phase necessary to build experience to get a shore job in the industry. I don't feel comfortable with the idea of encouraging youngsters into such an industry.

 

And for the matter at hand I always objected to the way seafarer unions and advocates always used the national security argument to claim the industry needed support. I recognize the argument is grounded in a real issue of maintaining sufficient seafarers to meet needs in the event of a war. Not just the MSC and RFA, but to man ships needed to carry supplies and potentially personnel to top up the USN and RN etc. However I was a merchant seaman, I wasn't in the RN or RFA and had zero interest in being militarized short of an existential threat to Britain (i.e. not the various expeditionary wars so popular with our great leaders) and I hated my union pretending I was some sort of quasi-military asset in waiting.

 

Ditto.

I'm glad I had my time when I did and whilst in some ways I would do it all again, I'd be doing it from back then; I certainly wouldn't do it starting today.

A very good friend of mine retired a few years ago after spending 52 years at sea, of which the latter 39 years of that time were spent serving as Master.

When asked if he missed the life, ever the wordsmith, his response was "I miss the crack with the lads, but I certainly don't miss the viscosity of the s**t".

[johnofwessex]

One of the obvious issues that hasnt been addressed is the changing role of women.

 

Not just are they becoming seafarers but how many these days want to be left behind while their dearly beloved sails away and they have both a career and children

[KeithMacdonald]

On 02/09/2024 at 16:10, billbedford said:

Nar, it just makes them ignore Monty's first rule of fighting in Europe. 

 

Just in case there's anyone who doesn't know what that is:

 

Quote

Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good.

 

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery,_1st_Viscount_Montgomery_of_Alamein

[billbedford]

Yes, and I would add: "especially if no one wants to join your army"