Military Intelligence?
Hugh O’Neill
Britain’s newest boondoggle aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth II
For no important reason, I was thinking about the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier, HMS “Queen Elizabeth II”. This ship has been in the news, but for all the wrong reasons: her commander was recently removed by helicopter whilst anchored in the Forth, accused of having used the ship’s car for personal use whilst in the US (maybe he should have used a helicopter?).
Even Lord West of Spithead (former head of the RN) expressed his bemusement at the style of management. But if this really is a question of misuse of public money, then it seems but a drop in several oceans compared with the bigger pictures – firstly of defence spending, secondly of defence strategy, and lastly of man-management.
Firstly, the cost to build these two 65,000T aircraft carriers is currently about $10 Billion (when it comes to such eye-watering amounts of money, the figures always expand because defence spending is notoriously adrift). This is however a bargain compared with US super-carriers (100,000T) which are nuclear-powered, cost about $15 Billion to build (and $3 Billion to de-commission).
The US fields about 10 such ships: they are quite defenceless (thus have to be escorted by various surface escorts and submarines) thus 5-6,000 men. The 2013 cost of clothing, training, feeding, paying such numbers put the daily running costs to USD $6.5 Million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_R._Ford-class_aircraft_carrier). If the Royal Navy deems her Captain over-used the ship’s car, then money must be tight.
But what of the aircraft the ship was built to carry? QEII is supposed to carry 36 F-35Bs (designed for US Marines) built by US firm, Lockheed-Martin.
The F-35 programme was 7 years behind schedule and $150 Billion over-budget (perfectly acceptable in defence spending!). Lockheed-Martin are not Boeing – and any reference to their 737 Max would be inappropriate – but when half remain grounded for lack of spares, then one (for-the-price-of-two) costs $300 million.
The 72 aircraft for two ships adds $11 Billion. (N.B. these are their off-the-shelf price, not their whole-of-life cost).
Secondly, QE II apparently now has 12 F-35Bs and will be attached to the US Marines. British taxpayers’ money has not been well spent. I don’t know how much a supersonic missile or torpedo costs, nor indeed a swarm of plastic drones, but such an expensive ship makes for a very juicy target.
The first aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, was launched in 1919 and technology has changed in 100 years, but not strategy. Carriers’ vulnerability puts a serious counterweight to any ‘prestige’ they might bring to erstwhile superpowers; indeed, the UK’s prostrated serfitude to the US destroys any last pretence of British Sovereignty.
All empires fall: losing one may be a misfortune, but to lose two is pure incompetence. Australia, Canada and NZ cling on like drowning men, weighed-down by oxymoronic military intelligence and misplaced political allegiance. Peace benefits Humanity. Wars profit Bankers.
As per the latest NZ Budget, our military will spend $5 Billion, doing “…nothing to address poverty, homelessness,…healthcare, low income, incarceration; nor does it address…climate change…Military spending diverts resources. If we want genuine socio-economic and climate justice, new thinking…is essential”.
Finally, man-management: the Royal Navy in 1757 executed Admiral Byng for ‘failure to do his utmost’. Voltaire considered that this was the British way “pour encorager les autres”. Is it likely that the removed commander will ever again do his utmost for King & Country?
British Secretary of Defense (Stupid Boy, Gavin Williamson) has walked the plank for breaching Cabinet duplicity, and PM May has been given a seat on the next helicopter. Napoleon said: Never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake.
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Potential duplicate reply button not working on William HBonney
An MIT security expert says that Israel’s famed Iron Dome missile defense system is flawed, with a success rate of under five percent. Says a physicist, Theodore A. Postol is professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT.
During the November 2012 conflict, a detailed review of a large number of photographs of Iron Dome interceptor contrails revealed that the rocket-defense system’s success rate was very low—as low as 5 percent or, perhaps, even less. A variety of media outlets have attributed the low casualty number to the supposed effectiveness of the Iron Dome system, quoting Israeli officials as saying it has destroyed 90 percent of the Hamas rockets it targeted. But close study of photographic and video imagery of Iron Dome engagements with Hamas rockets—both in the current conflict and in the 2012 hostilities—shows that the low casualties in Israel from artillery rocket attacks can be ascribed to Israeli civil defense efforts, rather than the performance of the Iron Dome missile defense system.
https://thebulletin.org/2014/07/the-evidence-that-shows-iron-dome-is-not-working/
This against Hamas ‘Roman candles’ not ballistic missiles traveling at mach 10 [7,500 MPH]
Your reply is already there – not sure why you can’t see it.
https://off-guardian.org/2019/06/04/military-intelligence/#comment-80621
Aircraft carrier = very large target.
Sink the carrier after it launches aircraft and where are the aircraft going to land?
Modern missile technology has made large ships obsolete.
Anti missile technology is devastatingly effective.
If carriers are sitting ducks, you’d struggle to name the last one sunk.
The Japanese had 20 aircraft carriers sunk in WW”, including the “unsinkable” Shinano. The US had 12 carriers sunk in that war, and the UK lost 8.
The last aircraft carrier to be sunk, was the IJN Amagi in Kure Harbour in July 1945.
So, seventy four years ago…
Island nations need carriers, the threat is always from the sea.
I think you’ll find that Jamaica has more jet skis, than aircraft carriers . . .
Regardless, the biggest threats from the seas, were always the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, False Flag Pirates and good ole’ Uncle $ham’s navy,
on the hunt for corporate resources to thieve . . .
Perhaps you would like to stress your brain, (rather than arguing some mathematical stupidity) and give us all just one example of when Aircraft Carriers were used defensively, William ? Additionally, Bill, even friendly fire and silly lil’ accidents with old munitions can immobilise an aircraft carrier, to the point where somebody like John McCain jumps ship ASAP, for example on the USS Forrestal …
“I’m an old Navy pilot. I know when a crisis calls for all hands on deck,”
Sen. McCain said >>> records show otherwise !
Show some respect for others’ intelligence.
I have great respect for the intelligence of others, but I fear my country could become a satellite of Russia.
The UK isn’t Jamaica. It has more people, and a tradition of invention which has elevated its position in the world.
As to aircraft carriers, they are an offensive weapon (attack being the better part of defence) , but always part of a carrier group. The defense of the vessel dependent on the air power of her aircraft, and to a lesser extent the accompanying fleet.
The world is a dangerous place, don’t take the freedoms we have in the UK for granted. If you doubt that, live in an undemocratic country. I do, and it makes me love my country more.
The UK already is a satellite. It is a US satellite. It is more of a US satellite than the old GDR ever was of the Soviet Union.
The world certainly is a dangerous place. I’m sure that most Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Yemenis, Palestinians, Iranians and Venezuelans would fully agree with you. It is a dangerous place largely because of the homicidal antics and military adventures of rogue terrorist regimes like the USA and its satellites like the UK as they rampage across the planet slaughtering, starving and immiserating tens of millions, like Nazi Germany on steroids. Which even now are simultaneously threatening further criminal wars of aggression against three of those countries.
You’re certainly wise not to take freedoms for granted. They are ancient history. In the UK as in the USA, stringent censorship is being imposed and civil liberties are being shredded. Whistleblowers and dissidents who reveal evidence of numerous war crimes and atrocities are increasingly subject to persecution and intimidation by a corrupt and politicised judicial system, with a growing number of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. We are all subject to an Orwellian system of state snooping and surveillance. Torture has bee normalised, and we have a “Leader of the Free World” who is an enthusiastic advocate of torture, inheriting a long established global Gulag of concentration camps, torture chambers and secret prisons in a score of countries, including UK territory, where thousands of unfortunates have been and are being tortured and murdered on an industrial scale.
I agree with you that you live in an undemocratic country. If that makes you love your country more, good luck to you.
An absolutely ludicrous assertion…
Without even getting into politics, how do you compare an island nation, with the GDR, where the Soviets could simply drive their tanks?
If you must make spurious comparisons, then the natural one to make is with Japan.
No, this is literally true. It is not hyperbole. The GDR sometimes defied the Soviet Union. It went ahead and built the Berlin Wall though the Kremlin told them not to. They wanted to, so they went ahead and did it regardless. Such disobedience on the part of the UK would be unthinkable.
The UK has been a satellite of the US since 1940, when it went cap in hand for US aid. The US drove a very hard bargain. All UK assets in North and South America had to be sold off to US investors in two weeks at fire sale prices. The Du Pont chemical complex was sold off at a 50% discount. The UK had to give up all its export markets to the US. The UK was not allowed to export its goods anywhere that competed with US producers. The UK had to hand over all its gold and foreign currency reserves. The US took over direct control of the UK economy. The UK was reduced to the same status as 19th century colonial India, and it has never recovered from that status.
That’s the simple truth of it, though Churchill and the UK Establishment ever since have tried to save face and disguise this with BS fantasies about “Special Relationships” and similar garbage.
Nonsense. If it had tried to leave the Warsaw Pact, it would have suffered the same fate as Hungary, or Czechoslovakia.
The Soviet war memorial, near the Riechstag (what Berliners refer to as ‘the tomb of the unknown rapist’), eloquently demonstrates Soviet attitudes to the GDR.
Our relationship with the US is nothing like that. The shear width of the Atlantic renders it a geographic impossibility.
What’s your source for these claims?
@OffG: Sincere apologies: I missed this question, coz’ i was travelling at that time when you asked me. I’ve just been editing my yahoo ‘bucket’ account backlog and found your query.
Unfortunately, quite a bit has been revealed publicly between then & Now and I’m not quite sure which source you require, precisely: what I state above (to WHB), is very largely a matter of public record, but somethings I know are also related to first hand corporate experience & insider family knowledge, that I’m quite happy to discuss publicly, today: and be damned come what may…
So, ask away … 🙂 and I’ll do my level best to answer any queries or fill any gaps in understanding the science, (that OffG staffers may still have), in order that we may interconnect events & science, to dot ‘i’s and cross the ‘T’ s,
so to say …
Fire away, bloom & boom 🙂 (lol)
@William HBonney :- Jesus wept laughing at men like you 🙂
Lol, hook, line & sinker :- surely you meant SPUTNIK !? after all, the Russians built the first satellites and scientifically defeated all others in the battle to reach Space, with a view to avoiding YOU personally, especially & your absurdly childish royal paranoias …
And now finally, the Russians are coming back from outer space, to clean up and get you & the UK, with a vengeance 😉 damn, you’d’man, Hilarious top trolling & Top Fun @OffG. ? !
You are living in the past, with absurd notions, in LALA Land.
Get a real job Bonney: and start thinking about where this world is going (after studying non-British versions of collective history worldwide) and study what level of electronic development & corruption of consciousness has already been achieved: now, we can Fake News, Fake Email, Fake Evidence and Fabricate cases in Law by manipulating said electronics, like GCHQ, the Italian S.S. & the CIA Marble programme, one prime example most current being the 3 year long …
Russia_HOAX !
which clearly you, William HBonney, were wholly DUPED & SUCKERED by, (either that, or yer’ trolling, U$ucker !) Binary innit’ mate …
(whoops, I forgot that math is not your speciality),
Try reading, instead 🙂
https://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/gchq-boss-left-in-2017-after-obama-ordered-project-fulsome-spy-ring-against-trump/230121
https://www.neonrevolt.com/2019/05/24/operation-charlemagne-the-silent-ones-and-eyepyramid-italys-role-in-framing-trump-spygate-qanon-greatawakening-neonrevolt/
Lesson number one: SPUTNIK HBonney, it’s a SPUTNIK, not a satellite and all these years later, the Russians have still not invaded or attacked the UK, even after driving their aircraft carrier directly past Dover … Miriam Webster says of a satellite:-
1 : a hired agent or obsequious follower : MINION, SYCOPHANT (Original: caps)
(WHBonney, perfectly apt) 🙂
2a : a celestial body orbiting another of larger size
b : a manufactured object or vehicle intended to orbit the earth, the moon, or another celestial body
3 : someone or something attendant, subordinate, or dependent
especially : a country politically and economically dominated or controlled by another more powerful country
4 : a usually independent urban community situated near but not immediately adjacent to a large city
5 : DIRECT BROADCAST SATELLITE
In Cyrillic, the definition of Sputnik is an orbiting companion of mother Earth.
Earth, the collective!
Start thinking globally & more collectively, coz’ whether you like Trump or not, WWG1WGA is our common collective destiny, thus you have been the butt of collective ridicule in these columns.
Talk about clueless . . . try & FOCUS ! Forget aircraft carriers:-
riddle me this:-
Was Theresa May forced out of ‘Dodge’ or did she just want to get the hell outta’ ‘Dodge’ and dodge the Don’s Bullets regarding GCHQ’s culpability, conspiring with the Italians in Spygate-TREASON USA & the whole Russia-HOAX (check links, carefully!) ? ! ? Julian Assange, Obama/Clinton DS spying on Trump, Seth Rich’s murder, DNC Servers unquestionably leaked by a Democrat, NOT hacked by Russia and all in all the FBI’s culpability under Comey to CONSPIRE, with bum books of British fiction, like the Steele Dossier, funded by Clinton & the FBI, via Fusion GPS and using Marble programming from the CIA to FAKE EMAIL in the name of Guccifer2:0. I could go on & On ANON, about ‘Q’ and a whole load of stuff that you neglect to mention, but the links attached can leave you with no further excuse for your ignorance, but to get real & man up to British reality and deep state operatives and the need for … Leveson2:0.
HBonney, CLEAN HOUSE !
Seriously, Where UBin’ ?
Listen to Bill Binney, before your brainwashed mind & comments become the butt of all jokes, here in these columns @OffG … & worldwide m8
P.s. Brexit was a deliberate omission, see ?
To avoid distractions in CLEARING HOUSE & the Draining of Swampland & “The History of the National Security State” !
& secret squirrels, SQUIRREL ? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
<<<<<< it went that way <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>
WEATHER !?
Clearly sir, William HBonney, you are not scientifically minded: thankfully, the Chinese are more open and less censored regarding such programmes & the science of financial derivative commodity driven weather speculations, like today in Chicago or those of affairs of ENRON, which were destroyed in WTC 7, where the SEC investigation was centred, you know the building that did not get hit by a plane, but collapsed like a pancake with a lead weight in the centre, in ten seconds a flat vertical implosion, perfect demolition job, caused officially by a few small fires … yawn. And reported almost a half hour in advance, miraculously, by the BBC.
Science Bill, Science.
Bedtime 4you, BillBonney, more Bill Binney tomorrow for you, indeed, a lifetime’s work to explain to beginners like you, who gave up on learning long ago, it would seem … but, we’ll get there, with patience. 😉
BillBonneyBeBillBinney,See?
WWG1WGA
No surprises that Boris dodged Trump 🙂
What a coward , what a charade,
what a masquerade . . . Farage would say 😉
tl, dr.
You mean: – TD4LR !? surely . . .
Too dumb for long read 😉 ?
or cannot respond intelligently ?
Just open the links & reform your anachronistic perceptions, with false royal notions of empire, like a good lil’ poodle, just like Boris, do as you are told, son.
BillBonney will become a subject of Bill Binney’s wavelength on global radars & reckoning,
whether you like it or not,
WWG1WGA, including Bill Binney & you !
Oh, & me 🙂
Open your mind, that is far out of touch …
I’m not going to engage with your comment because you do not appear to be of sound mind. Sorry, but I’m not a psychiatrist, and even if I were, I wouldn’t work for free.
yer’ “…not going to engage with the comment because you do not appear to be” informed and you know damn well that my 40 plus years of practical experience of both corporate & military intelligence, over generations, (including WW2 scientific designs for the M.o.D & corporations, like ENRON re. WTC7 & HAARP) , will crush anything you have to say …
Like I said, just a poodle, another Boris Johnson:
Open the links then connect your brain and say something … anything intelligent !
It will suffice that you acknowledge that you are clueless on intelligence matters most recent & Assange and the core nature of matters HISTORIC, in
“The History of the National Security State”
happening now . . . remember?
“My country had become a stale lite off Russia” fuck right off you’re a puppet nation as it is you MSM led sissy
McCain had to be flown off the Forrestal. He was in serious danger of being lynched by his crewmates after his negligence caused around 130 dead.
Who ever called the Shinano “unsinkable”? It was sunk before actually being completed. Most of the watertight doors hadn’t even been installed yet.
I’d also struggle to name the last conflict in which a CVG was put under any threat at all, ..the new gen of AM (lasers) will be the nuts, but I’d still not like to be on board a ship these days in a “real” conflict.
The last major naval engagement where US fleet carriers were under any serious threat was the invasion of the Philippines in 1944. Of course the Japanese were not equipped with anti ship missiles at the time. There were many instances of damage from aircraft in suicide attacks, but a single hit would not sink a fleet carrier. From memory I believe at least one smaller escort carrier was sunk in 1945.
I think several British carriers were sunk, one by a submarine early in the war, one off Norway in 1940 and the Ark Royal in 1941. There may have been others. Some scort carriers were also lost. Germany introduced the first anti ship missiles in 1943, the Fritz X and Henschel 293. They were very effective in a number of attacks off Italy, damaging the battleship Warspite and sinking a cruiser and a number of other targets, as well as the Italian battleship Roma as it was on its way to surrender.
In Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, opposing naval forces were so weak as to be virtually non existent. Anti ship missiles were used by Argentine forces in 1982 to sink two large vessels, the Coventry and Atlantic Conveyor, a merchant ship converted into a makeshift aircraft carrier. The last case occurred in 2006, when Hezbollah severely damaged and nearly sank a large Israeli warship. It appears that the missile actually failed to explode.
Countries like Iran and DPRK are now equipped with a large number of anti ship missiles of far greater sophistication than any previously employed in battle. There are surprises in every war, and no one can accurately predict what will occur until battle is joined. Experienced and competent commanders expected cavalry to play an important part in WW1. Many others doubted that armoured and mechanised forces would be effective in WW2, because of problems of supply and command and control, or that aircraft would be capable of sinking heavily armoured warships. But it seems reasonable to draw attention to the increasing vulnerability of large aircraft carriers.
An MIT security expert says that Israel’s famed Iron Dome missile defense system is flawed, with a success rate of under five percent.
During the November 2012 conflict, a detailed review of a large number of photographs of Iron Dome interceptor contrails revealed that the rocket-defense system’s success rate was very low—as low as 5 percent or, perhaps, even less. A variety of media outlets have attributed the low casualty number to the supposed effectiveness of the Iron Dome system, quoting Israeli officials as saying it has destroyed 90 percent of the Hamas rockets it targeted. But close study of photographic and video imagery of Iron Dome engagements with Hamas rockets—both in the current conflict and in the 2012 hostilities—shows that the low casualties in Israel from artillery rocket attacks can be ascribed to Israeli civil defense efforts, rather than the performance of the Iron Dome missile defense system.
https://thebulletin.org/2014/07/the-evidence-that-shows-iron-dome-is-not-working/
Note this against Hamas ‘Roman candles’ not against ballistic missiles travelling at mach 10 [7,500 MPH]
In WW2 carriers were sunk. WW2 also was the last time any carrier group engaged an equal force. Post WW2, they are used only when it is safe to do so, and then only against pawns.
I dunno why they still bother with carriers, I realise the fleet bossfella likes to hang out on one, but if the navy is still any use for escorts or carrying troops etc which it likely isn’t as sea is slow and planes do most of that stuff now, but anyway if the navy does need it’s own aeroplanes for anything more than empire building I woulda thought it would be smarter to do what my old man did in ww2.
He flew an avengerMk2 in the english fleet air arm as escort for convoys up to Murmansk. They didn’t use aircraft carriers I dunno why, prolly just not wanting to waste resources on commies, truth be told. Instead he and his cobbers were launched into the air by steam catapult off the foredeck of freighters.
They flew patrol looking out for nazis then landed their plane (which had floats) beside the ‘mothership’ and got craned aboard.
That would seem to me to be smarter as it doesn’t require putting all yer eggs in one basket. As far as the old bastard was concerned it was better too, since the english navy appears to have learned bugger all from the battle of Jutland in the first half of the 20th century euro war where the english navy lost lost 3 battlecruisers, 3 armored cruisers, and 8 destroyers off the coast of Denmark in 1916.
Navy architects appear to have done nothing about protecting the cordite magazines from flash explosion in the 20+ year interregnum between the two blues, cause the HMS Hood had exactly the same design flaw of a bottleneck with inboard cordite distribution causing lax safety practices as the boats in the Jutland debacle, resulting in the ‘mighty hood’ going down a coupla minutes after first being hit by a german shell. The magazine blew up, 3 men survived and more than 1300 crew did not.
Then the ark royal, the one boat the old bugger did fly off early on in his ww2 gig, was sunk thanks to incredible stupidity and incompetence by its leadership.
No wonder all the kiwi pilots were only too happy to take the ‘shit detail’ the english navy offered of flying off freighters in the North Sea.
Building vast floating targets seems to me to have been more about admirals’ penis envy than sensible strategic planning. Useful for a handful of years in the thousands of years old arseholes have been getting young men to kill each other, by the end of ww2 aircraft carriers had become surplus to needs and nothing has happened since then to alter that.
Same same goes for huge nuke subs, no matter how many kazillions is spent on making them invisible, the edge is lost in a matter of months and within a short time even small non-superpower navies know where all the genocidal, population-killing, nuke subs are. If USuk ever do decide in a fit of lunacy to attack Iran, I betcha the Iranians will knock off most of the big stuff (aircraft carriers, battleships and nuke subs) with a flotilla of craftily utilised inflatables in the first few days.
All that money literally billions every year, which could be used employing citizens to do constructive stuff within their communities gets blown in bribes, boats and bombs just so that scummy politicians and brainless navy bosses get to show off in the most facile dick measuring contest since Churchill needed a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers to try and meet Uncle Joe’s challenge way back when. lol.
I have to correct you about no aircraft carriers being used on the Russian convoy operation, there were several.
They were mostly converted merchant ships, with decks around 500 feet long, and carried Hurricanes, Swordfish and Martlets.
I know this because my late uncle served on HMS Avenger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Avenger_(D14)
http://www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/ESCORT/ACTIVITY.htm#.XPdqqo97mUk
http://www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/ESCORT/TRACKER.htm#.XPdr7I97mUk
Fair enough, my knowledge is confined to what the old man said. He was always whining about his back getting permanently buggered by the catapult.
In defense I will say that after checking the links that the so called aircraft carriers used on the Murmansk run all appear to be freighters converted into ‘carriers’ rather than purpose built ships.
I have a brother who lapped all that war stuff up who would most likely know more, the little I know was when in some sort of weird post his karking it curiosity I bought (but never actually put together ) a model of a fleet arm avenger Mk2 as far as I can work out he was in either 851 or 855 squadron but am not even sure of that.
851 squadron was a Royal Australian Air Force squadron in the 1950’s.
855 squadron was a Fleet Air Arm squadron based in Hawkinge, Kent in 1944, mostly used for attacking E Boats and other enemy shipping in the English Channel.
851 became a RAAF or RAAN squadron after ww2 – before that it appears to have been a RN fleet air arm squadron which is why it could have been 851
see https://infogalactic.com/info/851_Naval_Air_Squadron
On the other hand 851 were posted to the indian and Pacific oceans where my old man didn’t serve until after VE and even then I believe by the time he got down there Japan had surrendered. That little I know from him telling me his disgust at finding the US ship they were transported on was dry.
I just went thru the search routine I went through yesterday when I first replied tho then I didn’t turn up the Indo/Pacific thing. Apart from 855 854 and above were grumman avenger Mk3 squadrons recruited too late to be, useful which means if he wasn’t in 855, 853 is probably the most likely as they had M2 Avengers also.
None of the bits on fleet air arm squadrons refer to the RNNZVR though and I know his entire squadron were part of the kiwi volunteer reserve because when I was a kid, on anzac day the radio & later tv war spruiker types used to make a big deal about how few of the NZ fleet air arm blokes came back as if it was somehow wonderful so few got through.
Still most likely those that did get through ww2 were all dead of old age before the glory to war websites were made.
Salisbury (military action by an antagonistic foreign power using WMD’s), demonstrates what happens if a country is not resolute about its defence.
Sometimes that means building weapons systems capable of taking the consequences right up to the enemies coastline.
A carrier is only a ‘sitting duck’ if one considers it as a single vessel, but no navy would use them like that. They are an integrated weapons system, and kept well out of harms way. Typically, a carrier group would destroy the means to wage war on it long before any missiles were launched at it.
For a start, you’re on the wrong website if you think your first statement won’t go unchallenged.
All the Salisbury incident ‘demonstrated’ was that Cold War spy games are still very much a part of our psychopathic leader’s toolbox. Everything else beyond that is unsubstantiated speculation of which we’ll likely never know the truth and you’d have to be either a simpleton, or a blatant liar to suggest otherwise.
I won’t bother with the rest of your post because arguing the pros and cons of a Carrier’s military capabilities and application means I have to implicitly accept the terminological trick (pulled by both yourself above, our governments and the companies that build these things) that an aircraft carrier somehow qualifies as a ‘defensive’ weapon.
“Salisbury (military action by an antagonistic foreign power using WMD’s), demonstrates what happens if a country is not resolute about its defence.”
LOL
sorry, that’s all your comment warranted. For a proper response, see: OffG, Craig Murray, MoA et al..
again, LOL
Salisbury (false flag operation by out of control Spook Agencies) demonstrates what happens when we are ruled by half wits concocting transparent provocations as a pretext for aggression.
Well we spotted the liberal shill who believes every MSM story printed. Are you antonym in his new Jew profile? Probably
Russia has so much form for assassination by poisoning, that Boney M wrote a disco song about it, over forty years ago. It isn’t that you are immune from MSM, you just choose to believe another countries.
One has to ask, if you admire Russia so much, why you don’t live there? Or do you?
William, take a look at this link for a rundown of some of the glaring holes in the official version of the farcical Salisbury story. If you seriously believe your own words, this should serve to lift the veil and expose the grim reality that our government are nothing more than a bunch of big fat criminals, committing big fat crimes, utterly void of any humanity or integrity. They are scum
https://www.theblogmire.com/summing-up-the-official-claims-in-the-salisbury-poisonings-weighed-in-the-balances-and-found-wanting/
Consecutive passport numbers….
Sorry, what are the chances?
Bellingcat are the chances
Ah… “When I was a lad”
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule. Stick close to your desks and never go to sea, and you all may be rulers of the Queen’s Navee!
When you realise how much money is poured into these HMS Sitting Ducks you realise just how far we have been duped when told there is never enough money for the NHS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGQ-wgPGTp8
Tut, your last paragraph reminded me of Eisenhower’s “Humanity hanging from a cross of iron” speech from 1953. Things shave got steadily worse since then.
Military Intelligence?
I would argue, yes, there is a lot of intelligence, because one cannot be dumb stupid idiot when able to appropriate vast amount of vital resources to build plain criminal evil destructive instruments of death.
The ship broadside, if in Australia, can be used to promote/advertise racing and gambling.
Why are we allowing this shit to happen ?
.. what power(s) do ‘we’ have to prevent shit from —any shit— from happening?
Because Brits are cowards and have had decades of being told to do a Gandhi aka fuck all in regards to getting change. Voting never changed a thing you asked for violence on the other hand does. Do you think our leaders would listen if they knew they had a good chance of having no head left?
This from the ‘war nerd’ describing how new missiles have made the carriers obsolete…
“Every single change in technology in the past half a century has had “Stop building carriers!” written all over it. And nobody in the navy brass paid any attention.
The lesson here is the same one all of you suckers should have learned from watching the financial news this year: the people at the top are just as dumb as you are, just meaner and greedier. And that goes for the ones running the US surface fleet as much as it does for the GM or Chrysler honchos. “The purpose of the Navy,” Vice Admiral John Bird, commander of the Seventh Fleet, tells me, “is not to fight.” The mere presence of the Navy should suffice, he argues, to dissuade any attack or attempt to destabilize the region. From Yokosuka, Guam, and Honolulu
That’s the kind of story people are still writing. It’s so stupid, that first line, I won’t even bother with it: “The purpose of the Navy is not to fight.” No kidding. The Seventh Fleet covers the area included in that 2000 km range for the new Chinese anti-ship weapons, so I guess it’s a good thing they’re not there to fight”. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/
In the next war, carriers will be more vulnerable to missile attack than battleships were to air attack in WW2. Imagine a 100,000 ton carrier sinking with its air group and 5-6,000 crew, its crippled nuclear reactors poisoning the ocean.
Knowing how vulnerable they are, the middle kingdom has expressed absolutely no interest in building carriers…. Oh wait….
Harry, thanks for the superb link: the war nerd takes no prisoners.
I understand that Japan recently committed to purchasing a fleet of F-35s, perhaps because they are by default optimized for kamikaze ops.
Nwwoods – Great response: financial kamikaze. Divine flatulence 😉
Perhaps they could supply the captain with a bicycle instead, painted the appropriate shade of navy blue, and save a bit of money.
These 65k ton carriers are the biggest ships ever operated by the Navy. Its battleships and fleet carriers of WW2 were 35,000 and 25,000 tons respectively. They might as well have been named HMS White Elephant I and II. One will be mothballed immediately (maybe they could sell it to the Chinese?) The other may operate with a much reduced complement of a handful of aircraft (if the F35s ever work.)
This is a ludicrous prestige project that will be seen as a national embarrassment as time goes by, like the scrapped Nimrod AEW. It reflects the delusions of our ruling elite (“What if we want to bomb North Korea?”) and those of people like Admiral West.
To operate, aircraft carriers require an escort of 5-6 frigates and destroyers and a submarine, for anti aircraft and anti submarine defence. These won’t be available. Britain has a grand total of 17 frigates and destroyers, 5 – 6 of which are out of commission undergoing refits at any one time. British frigates and destroyers are less well equipped than their foreign counterparts. Crewing even one of these ships will be a major headache. The personnel strength of the Navy is currently 29,000. Even the cost of fuel for operations is prohibitive. The US carriers have nuclear reactors which only require refuelling around once every fourteen years.
It would have made much more sense to buy a few extra frigates and destroyers instead. Maybe the odd small aircraft carrier of around 20,000 tons like the Invincible class, if they really wanted. Though most people think in any future wars large aircraft carriers against a half competent enemy would be little more than floating coffins, very vulnerable to the new class of anti ship missiles like the Yakhonts/ Sunburn. In recent times, they have only been used in modern colonial style warfare against the present day equivalent of the Zulus and the Fuzzy Wuzzies. Brave but not terribly well equipped fighting men who don’t have so much as an Airfix model Spitfire for air defence. Aircraft carriers would be terribly vulnerable if used even against countries like Iran or North Korea.
And then there are the aircraft. I think the actual unit cost of the F35 comes in at something around $400 million a pop all in. Whether it will ever work is open to question. America has problems building aircraft that don’t work. This thing has problems with its engines, which keep conking out in mid flight, with the oxygen system, which keeps failing with rather unfortunate consequences for the pilot, and the cannon, which won’t fire because its computer won’t work. It has wings which are too small for a good fighter, and it can’t bomb anything if it faces any stronger opposition than a few tribesmen with AK47s. Apart from that, it’s okay, though we probably can’t afford more than a dozen of them. The previous F22 was a similar failure. The production line was closed down after 100 – odd of them had been made, though they were supposed to produce 1,000.
America used to produce some very good aircraft, like the F14/15/16/18. The F35 is supposed to replace them, but the new aircraft is grossly inferior to them all. They are talking about putting the F18 and A10 back into production. This is eerily reminiscent of the Luftwaffe in WW2, whose new aircraft projects like the Messerschmitt 210 and Heinkel 177 were flying death traps. They were forced to put obsolete aircraft like the Junkers 87 and the Heinkel 111 back into production till the end of the war, so that they had something to fight with, however inadequate.
Still, so long as Lockheed’s profits are okay, I suppose that’s the main thing. And Gavin Pugwash Williamson, or his successor, can posture and preen about how Britain rules the waves with HMS White Elephant and its dozen Flying Turkeys, even if they can’t scrape a crew together for it. Why should England tremble?
HMS White Elephant was an electoral bung of Gordon Brown. Whose constituency built the damn thing?
Real warfare now is about blasting the ionosphere to create awful weather in enemy territory. It is releasing super pests onto other contitenrs to infest agricultural crops. It is engineering viruses to be more harmful and releasing them abroad. It is crashing global stock markets to wipe competitors out.
Aircraft carriers had their day. In about 1945….
I do not want proxy wars either. Not in Ukraine, not in Syria, not in North Korea, not in Venezuela.
But all our corrupt officials and representatives think wasting trillions of our money on archaic overpriced ersatz masturbation toys is just fine and dandy.
It is not ok to sell their daughters into foreign prostitution though.
Oh no….
By my estimations, the only way out of this mess is to buckle the machine and arrange mass withdrawal of labour. Crash the whole rotten lot of it
……it’s the only weapon we have, either that, or we remain eternally enslaved by the forces of evil
Here is a link to a CIA document showing details of the effects of millimeter waves on biological structures. It is a translation of the original Soviet files from research done in 1977, declassified in 2012. This comes from the Fullerton Informer, who, by my estimation, is a truly great person, a beacon of light. 5G equals permanent exposure to this man made radiation, 24/7. This is an enormous threat to you and your family, wherever you are. TIME TO START TAKING ACTION AGAINST THIS EVIL
https://thefullertoninformer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/cia-millimeter-waves-1.pdf
The only problem with that is that they don’t need the labour any more. The proles are surplus to requirements and can now be culled, as the Davos/ Bilderberg crew have decided. They aren’t needed any more to dig coal, smelt steel ingots, or hammer rivets in shipyards.
Fantastic idea, however I think you will find that many workers don’t even know what or who they are working for.
Pity we can’t post a list of companies?
Re: aircraft carriers in general:
I sometimes feel that I could show up somewhere in the corridors of the Pentagon with a plan to recycle people’s shirts and underwear cheaply into some sort of instant camouflage in the event of an “enemy” guided-missile attack upon one of “our” aircraft carriers, and there would be a high-ranking official there daft enough to fund me to the tune of billions of dollars to develop it.
Certifiable insanity is no stranger to the military environment of modern western government.
“When the Way governs the world, the proud stallions drag dung carriages. When the Way is lost to the world, war horses are bred outside the city.”
“Weapons are ominous tools. They are abhorred by all creatures. Anyone who follows the Way shuns them.”
“Those who advice the ruler on the Way, do not want the world subdued with weapons.”
Tao Te Ching
We live in society that grew accustomed to war and violence as the sole mean to “solve” its conflicts. The irony of this is that now there is a hughe issue with bullying and cyber-bullying and people are still ‘wondering’ how was this ever possible in a, so called, civilized society.
A ‘civilized society’ that still debates what’s the best (more economic and efficient) way to go to war, that is, the more efficient way to manslaughter….
I think our main problem is that most people are, essentially, decent, whereas politicians are not.
And it’s the politicians who make the decisions…
Welcome to the Age of the Stupid – we know virtually all the answers to our problems, but do the opposite for the benefit of a few thousand of Satan’s agents
That is extremely well-said.
And I am, myself, probably sometimes guilty of what you say too, although I do try not to be.
With missile capabilities at the level they have now reached, aircraft carriers are as useless as WW2 battleships turned out to be in the 1940’s.
Russia recently demonstrated the maximum tactical use they can be put to, when they sent their one remaining carrier to Syria. Against a smaller power they give you the advantage of air superiority when deployed as a ‘pop up airfield’, but against another major power they would be useless. The recent US sabre waving in the Gulf may impress the gormless, but even Iran has the missile capability to make them worthless.
As to the racket that is war, Major General Smedley Butler published this pamphlet in 1935 based on an after dinner speech he made. Not the finest writing, but well worth a read…_
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf
The AK’s not a carrier in the conventional sense so you shouldn’t really consider it as such.
Whilst it’s original function might have been considered to be a nuclear launch platform (there were 500kT nukes under it’s deck) it’s real purpose was as an area denial system designed to kill aircraft within it’s engagement envelope.
As such, somewhat ironically the ancient old soviet aircraft carrier is probably the only thing afloat that could withstand a modern missile attack by itself.
The AK also served another useful purpose, generating hysteria in the media, with Sid Scurvy, Ace Reporter of the Daily Bugle, warning how Putin was about to murder us all in our beds when it came within a couple of hundred of miles of the UJK coastline. Whilst simultaneously running pieces about how the thing was so clapped out it was about to sink.
The Anglo-Imperialists (self loving white peoples) are prepared to go down fighting.. if they can’t have it, neither can anyone else.
Time that the non- brain dead 5-eyes morons realused that we didn’t win the second world war by outselves. There were many millions of Sub-continentals, Africans and Afro-Caribbeans as well Afro-Americans, Native Americans etc. AND the millions and millions of Russians, military and civilians, who actually stopped the Anglo-Imperialists proxy Nazi mercenaries and wiped out their military strength. Only than did the ‘Allies’ make a token effort at invasion.
Aircraft carriers are totally useless in modern warfare. They are visible from the sky and vulnerable to missiles – hypersonic and ballistic, never mind frogmen with limpets.
Can tell you Gott two thumbs down for the use of her word ‘white’. Fucking skin colour pussies are to easy to scare
Let me be the first to say it! …
Military intelligence? Does that even exist in the context of the British armed forces?
Yes, doing his utmost meant he should have arranged with the enemy to execute him.
Byng was the victim of politicians and the Admirality who were actually responsible for the failure to stop the French taking Menorca by sending his fleet late and ill- equipped. It was embarrassingly obvious to most involved that it was an unjust, vindictive and low life response. He was shot on the deck of his own ship. It was a typically British way of doing things, when in trouble, blame somebody else and punish them. Nobody at the top is ever to blame in Britain; it’s a tradition that is still well maintained
The powers that be seemed determined to uphold these traditions by treating Julian Assange as a latter day Admiral Byng.
Then, as now, shit flows downhill.
Proof.
That humans are headed for extinction.
Unless, of course, those who believe in the human spirit are right, and further evolution lies in that direction…
It looks indeed as if our physical existence at least is headed nowhere – in its current form at any rate…
So Wardropper – It appears that Brave New World was actually predictive programming? And all these years I thought it was a fiction.
I think we can safely relax, Maggie – somewhat.
It is certainly fiction.
So we have our fiction on one side, and our personal experience on the other.
What kind of cocktail we make of that is up to us, I reckon.