ARmy Rumour SErvice

**jagman** · 02-01-2012, 13:01

Originally Posted by A2_Matelot

Read my post; there were standby plans in case the AAW threat changed. Also think of the Cornwall episode, the Navy didn't take the decision lightly and had a balanced view.

Bollox.

The Royal Navy chose to send a warship into a warzone where the threat changes daily without a full weapons load.
That isn't a balanced view of the risk, its blind optomism that nothing nasty will happen.

Whilst I appreciate the RN operates "with what it's got" but pretending that sending Wesminster to Libya with four Sea Wolf's was a sensible and balanced decision is barking.

Given that Westminster stopped for stores at Gibraltar on the way there is no excuse for not giving her a full weapons load.

The AAW threat might well have changed fast enough to find HMS Westminster bobbing around off Libya having fired off her vast arsenal of four Sea Wolf's wondering what to do next. Standby plans my arse, filling the VLS with missiles should have been the plan.
If the RN cannot send properly armed ships into a shooting war then perhaps they should stay at home and have a serious rethink?

Sooner or later the RN is going to send a ship somewhere a bit hot (the Straight of Hormuz perhaps?) and the oppostion are going to take a gamble that the magazines of that ship are empty. Given current form it isn't an unreasonable gamble is it?

Will it be a reasonable risk when the RN loses a warship because it saved a few quid not bothering putting enough missiles on the ship?

**labrat** · 02-01-2012, 13:14

Originally Posted by A2_Matelot

Read my post; there were standby plans in case the AAW threat changed. Also think of the Cornwall episode, the Navy didn't take the decision lightly and had a balanced view.

"They couldn't hit an Elephant at this distan..."

**the_guru** · 02-01-2012, 13:16

Originally Posted by Hellzapoppin

But not without precedent: BBC NEWS | UK | Iraq Red Caps 'deprived of ammo'

Fully aware of that. We had the same issue. We had our ammo withdrawn on TELIC 1 after the war fighting phase and had to sign out 10 rounds FP ammo if we were going off site at Shaibah. The head sheds slipped straight into Bosnia mode. Bad mistake.

**CivvyPete** · 02-01-2012, 13:26

Originally Posted by jagman

Bollox.
Sooner or later the RN is going to send a ship somewhere a bit hot (the Straight of Hormuz perhaps?) and the oppostion are going to take a gamble that the magazines of that ship are empty. Given current form it isn't an unreasonable gamble is it?

Will it be a reasonable risk when the RN loses a warship because it saved a few quid not bothering putting enough missiles on the ship?

I think this is the critical bit. Given what we lost in the Falklands, I'm amazed the Navy even considers operating without as much anti-air capability as possible. My old mother used to love the phrase "Don't spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar". These days I think it needs to be "Don't lose a ship". Even us tight fisted Yorkshire folk know that there's a point at which penny pinching economies in the short term become long term expensive folly.

Of course this isn't the time to mention the lack of a Maritime Reconnaissance platform - but one of these false economies is going to come back and bite us before very long. The sad bit is that the only cost the politicians will pay is a mildly embarrassing questioning on TV - the real price will be paid in servicemen's lives.

**frenchie** · 02-01-2012, 14:06

Surely we operated as part of a combined naval task force? If so then I assume that this would have been based around carrier groups with dedicated AAW and ASW? What was HMS Westminster's role? Was she carrying extra stuff in lieu? Was she screened by AAW?

I would be fairly surprised if HMS Ocean, The CdG, the Giuseppe Garibaldi and whatever the Yanks had wasn't screened by AAW ships and Aircraft.

**jagman** · 02-01-2012, 14:13

Originally Posted by frenchie

Surely we operated as part of a combined naval task force? If so then I assume that this would have been based around carrier groups with dedicated AAW and ASW? What was HMS Westminster's role? Was she carrying extra stuff in lieu? Was she screened by AAW?

I would be fairly surprised if HMS Ocean, The CdG, the Giuseppe Garibaldi and whatever the Yanks had wasn't screened by AAW ships and Aircraft.

You are assuming the AAW escort has missiles in its magazine aren't you? See the problem.....?

**jimmys_best_mate** · 02-01-2012, 14:31

Originally Posted by frenchie

Surely we operated as part of a combined naval task force? If so then I assume that this would have been based around carrier groups with dedicated AAW and ASW? What was HMS Westminster's role? Was she carrying extra stuff in lieu? Was she screened by AAW?

I would be fairly surprised if HMS Ocean, The CdG, the Giuseppe Garibaldi and whatever the Yanks had wasn't screened by AAW ships and Aircraft.

The point isn't whether HMS Westminster had Anti-Air, Anti-Sub or Anti-Anything Else cover from someone else to cover her ammunition deficiencies. The point is that a Royal Navy ship sailed into a warzone without being fully ammunitioned. Again, what if on the way to Libya something else had come up and she'd had to be retasked to, for the sake of argument, pull British civilians out of a different warzone where there was a real chance of air engagement and we didn't have someone else's AA coat tails to hide behind?

If a RN ship is sailing around the seas she should be fully prepared to protect herself to the best of her abilities, not carrying a bare minimum of ammunition to save money.

**Pigshyt_Freeman** · 02-01-2012, 14:37

I fail to see how it saves money anyway, bar the small manpower/handling cost of actually taking missiles out of store and loading them onto the ship. It's not as if the Captain would take a look in the magazine, see a couple of dozen missiles and then fire half of them off for the sheer hell of it.

Unless of course there are only about three dozen or so in the entire UK inventory, and the 'plan' in to buy a few off the internet on an 'as and when' basis, and send them by UPS.

**jimmys_best_mate** · 02-01-2012, 14:40

Originally Posted by Pigshyt_Freeman

Unless of course there are only about three dozen or so in the entire UK inventory, and the 'plan' in to buy a few off the internet on an 'as and when' basis, and send them by UPS.

Would it surprise you if that was exactly what our 'war plan' was?