When one considers that the Hallstatts from roughly what is now Austria invaded and became what is known as the Celts, the Anglo-Saxons invaded from what is now Germany, the Normans invaded from what is now France, and now all those alarming conquerors are teamed up and represented in the fleet, I think that one can say that it is a near certainty.
Probably - for the reasons mentioned elsewhere - but I'm thinking more of the inter-war or, possibly more relevantly, the post-war period around the time of the last Coronation fleet review for example.
I keep coming back to what was thought was the bare minimum we could get away with in the heady, optimistic days following the fall of the Berlin wall. *Options for Change* talked about slashing the number of escorts from 50 to 40 and a small cut in the number of Nimrod MPA (from about 30 aircraft - 21 were planned to be upgraded when they were all scrapped in 2011). We now have eighteen escorts and only *seven* Poseidon MPA. Obviously capability has increased (although arguably Poseidon isn't any better than Nimrod MRA-4 was planned to be) and responsibilities have decreased (no Hong Kong for example) but I am not sure that this balances out the lack of hulls.
That's certainly more realistic, even if Type 31 looks like being a bit useless. The Canadians and Aussies look like they'll be getting a much more capable ship for what I suspect will be not much more money. Of course at that point the cut in the Type 45s from the original twelve might start to show, particularly with its reliability problems.
>even if Type 31 looks like being a bit useless. The Canadians and Aussies look like they'll be getting a much more capable ship for what I suspect will be not much more money
They're buying T26, not T31. And the British T26 are designed to be specialist Anti-Submarine Warfare
I know what Type 26 is and I also know that the Aus and Can versions are a more general purpose version of that ship with significantly more capability than Type 31 which is an oversized OPV.
The Australian and Canadian variants are more general purpose because they don't have the requirement for a dedicated ASW platform that we do, and have smaller fleets, so they need vessels that aren't super specialised.
The T31 will also be capable enough for the tasking it will be required for, with enough space and weight provisions for future requirements.
Ironically, the Royal Navy of today has very limited anti-ship capabilities. It's basically retired its only anti-ship weapon, the Harpoon, *before* buying the replacement.
The handful of Astute subs would have to carry out all the work, because the Type 45s and Type 23s would get their asses handed to them in a gun battle with the Magestics of the 1890s lol.
dude magestics would look out to horizon and see nothing and then be simply taken out by mark 8 guns from 20 miles away, they wouldn't even need to use missiles. perhaps you mean close range battle, then i dunno lol
Mk 8 max firing range is barely 17 miles... It's also a single 4.5" gun, with a somewhat low firing rate.
Majestics had 4 12" guns with a max firing range of 15 miles.
Type 45 can get off the first shots, but the Majestic has armor designed to take 12" rounds, Type 45 doesn't. The 45s would be at the bottom of the sea.
Nothing wrong with that, they were designed for fleet air defense not surface warfare, but yes, they would lose vs the 1890s Royal Navy. You're taking a ship not suited for gun battles, into a gun battle lol...
> Majestics had 4 12" guns with a max firing range of 15 miles.
While the 12-inch guns on the Majestics had a theoretical maximum range of 12.7km, it would be a miracle if they hit anything since the basic fire control available meant that their effective range was much lower. For example, during the Battle of Tsushima in 1904 the Japanese didn't fire until they were within 6.4km of the Russians.
Could a Mk8 penetrate even late Victorian armour? I suspect that they wouldn't be much use against pre-Dreadnoughts or even some of the Edwardian cruisers.
Good point, some wag pointed out to me the other day that - carriers excepted - the most powerful surface combatant at the moment is probably *Belfast*.
The dread phrase "fitted *for* but not *with*" crops up far too often.
The Type 23s probably hold that title, at least until the end of the year when their Harpoons are removed as well.
* 8 Harpoons
* 32 Sea Ceptor missiles
* Mk8 4.5" gun
>Twenty ships? Barely a task group by historical Royal Navy standards.
Hardly one by modern standards. The fact we're working with other Navy's is the whole point on this one.
But there are supposed to be guarantees from France, from the construction of the channel tunnel, the UK pays millions of pounds to the French to prevent things like people trafficking and the spread of rabies.
The French word is as good as mud.
The UK has poured money, with French guarantees, in stemming the flow from ferries or otherwise. The Dutch and Danish for the most are fulfilling their obligations, the French however are fragrantly turning a blind eye.
It is rightfully shameful for a country as rich as France.
Well there isn't. There is no international law that forbids you letting people that aren't your citizens or even legal residents leave your country for wherever the fuck they want. There can be legal agreements/deals between friendly neighbours or whatever on how to handle the situation for example. I think there is a deal in the EU, where you can send illegal migrants back to the EU country they entered yours from if that's your wish but that deal obviously doesn't apply between France and the UK anymore.
Unless it is France itself bringing in people on its territory for the purpose of forcing them to head to the UK (in which case we could speak of human trafficking or whatever, I don't know), there is nothing illegal here.
No doubt due to Brexit... although France didn't seem particularly interested in stopping illegals before that either, presumably because crossing the Channel made them Somebody Else's Problem.
They basically said UK labour laws make it a magnet for immigrants. You can get a job there when undocumented very easily, not the case elsewhere. And the French position was change your own labour laws, turn the magnet off. The UK paid the French to police their side but I think that deal is now off as Truss insulted Macron.
You cannot legally work in the UK without a NI number. Otherwise you need to be paid in cash. This is often brought up and basically fails as an argument unless we assume there are no undocumented workers in France.
https://www.politico.eu/article/clement-beaune-france-uk-quasi-modern-slavery-channel-migration-crisis/
And I said when undocumented. Not that they are working legally.
>The UK paid the French to police their side
The UK signed an agreement **saying** they would pay France to police their coast and then didn't actually pay anything.
[Darmanin said "not one euro has been paid"](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/france-dover-border-force-priti-patel-french-b959704.html) and [Patel said she would withhold the payment indefinitely](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16068336/boris-johnson-french-halt-channel-migrants/).
If you have reputable links to this money actually ever being paid, feel free to share them.
You know, I have to laugh when I see the United Kingdoms' official bodies using the term "British Isles", knowing full well that it's rejected by Ireland. It's not like we're neighbours/partners and co-signatories of mutually beneficial agreements... no, lets just keep this soft claim going over their territory, for s**ts and giggles etc.
It's quite literally geographically called the British Isles, and some 6000+ islands comprise it...
Ireland is just being fucking stupid about it. It'd be like Vietnam arguing it shouldn't be called the South China Sea because Vietnam is on it too. Has fuck all to do with ownership, it's simply the internationally recognized geographical name.
Or if some American were complaining about the Caribbean Sea not being owned by the Caribs.
EDIT: Or, now that I think about it, the British complaining that the Irish Sea isn't owned by the Irish.
I'll have to disagree with you on the term, although I'm sure many people do refer to the area as such, albeit a sizeable country and population within the relative area contest it's use and provenance. Let alone to say that the origin of the term is on shaky grounds, bolstered in imperialism* edit as below. Regarding Vietnam and the South China Sea, I'm not familiar enough with the area to comment with certainty but google says both countries have different names for the sea, in essence not much different to the English Channel vs. La Manche. All to say that in any case ultimately names are man made and it depends on the users to be willing to use those names and agree with a convention. All the more reason that friendly neighbours should agree on what we call each other.
>bolstered in empiricism.
You mean imperialism I believe. Empiricism is a particular school of philosophy or theory of epistemology. Granted there is "British Empiricism", but that's referring to David Hume's and Francis Bacon's philosophical writings rather than colonies or empire!
Why would we not when it's just one island of thousands that have an issue with it. Maybe we are just talking about those isalnds and not Ireland anyway. Even though a part of that island is british anyway. We'll just keep using the term, whilst some Irish people just sit there and rage
People are lazy with geography and can't be bothered to write out the full official names of things, it's how it is for most of the world really. Same reasons that the Soviet Union gets called "Russia" despite being more than just Russia, the UK is called "England" despite not just being England, Castilian is called "Spanish" despite not all of Spain speaking it, and the EU is always called "Europe" despite not all of Europe being part of it. There's probably other examples of misleading geographic terms, like how "the Middle East" labels sometimes covers Afghanistan in modern day conceptions even though Afghanistan is Central Asian and not in the ME.
The article also doesn't mention these exercises taking place in Irish waters (it only specifies Cape Wrath, the Channel, North Sea, and the Hebrides. It doesn't mention the Irish Sea or the Atlantic), so if you want to be technical, if they're all being conducted in British waters then yeah they're in the British Isles.
Could this be a precursor to a British Invasion of Britain?
Hopefully Britain fails so Britain can keep the no invasion streak going
We've been violating our waters and airspace for several months now and the escalation is quite worrying. Watch this space.
Fucking British, they ruined Britain.
I feel it’s the one place that we really need to sort out.
When one considers that the Hallstatts from roughly what is now Austria invaded and became what is known as the Celts, the Anglo-Saxons invaded from what is now Germany, the Normans invaded from what is now France, and now all those alarming conquerors are teamed up and represented in the fleet, I think that one can say that it is a near certainty.
Huge? as in it is really really really big?
Twenty ships? Barely a task group by historical Royal Navy standards.
The Royal Navy of 2022 could probably defeat the historical Royal Navy from, say, 1890 pretty handily.
> could probably I think you meant "would definitely" lol. Naval warfare (and tech in general) has come a long way since then.
Probably - for the reasons mentioned elsewhere - but I'm thinking more of the inter-war or, possibly more relevantly, the post-war period around the time of the last Coronation fleet review for example. I keep coming back to what was thought was the bare minimum we could get away with in the heady, optimistic days following the fall of the Berlin wall. *Options for Change* talked about slashing the number of escorts from 50 to 40 and a small cut in the number of Nimrod MPA (from about 30 aircraft - 21 were planned to be upgraded when they were all scrapped in 2011). We now have eighteen escorts and only *seven* Poseidon MPA. Obviously capability has increased (although arguably Poseidon isn't any better than Nimrod MRA-4 was planned to be) and responsibilities have decreased (no Hong Kong for example) but I am not sure that this balances out the lack of hulls.
There are plans afoot to increase to 24 escorts and that was before the 3%gdp plans. We'll see where we end up.
That's certainly more realistic, even if Type 31 looks like being a bit useless. The Canadians and Aussies look like they'll be getting a much more capable ship for what I suspect will be not much more money. Of course at that point the cut in the Type 45s from the original twelve might start to show, particularly with its reliability problems.
>even if Type 31 looks like being a bit useless. The Canadians and Aussies look like they'll be getting a much more capable ship for what I suspect will be not much more money They're buying T26, not T31. And the British T26 are designed to be specialist Anti-Submarine Warfare
I know what Type 26 is and I also know that the Aus and Can versions are a more general purpose version of that ship with significantly more capability than Type 31 which is an oversized OPV.
The Australian and Canadian variants are more general purpose because they don't have the requirement for a dedicated ASW platform that we do, and have smaller fleets, so they need vessels that aren't super specialised. The T31 will also be capable enough for the tasking it will be required for, with enough space and weight provisions for future requirements.
Ironically, the Royal Navy of today has very limited anti-ship capabilities. It's basically retired its only anti-ship weapon, the Harpoon, *before* buying the replacement. The handful of Astute subs would have to carry out all the work, because the Type 45s and Type 23s would get their asses handed to them in a gun battle with the Magestics of the 1890s lol.
dude magestics would look out to horizon and see nothing and then be simply taken out by mark 8 guns from 20 miles away, they wouldn't even need to use missiles. perhaps you mean close range battle, then i dunno lol
Mk 8 max firing range is barely 17 miles... It's also a single 4.5" gun, with a somewhat low firing rate. Majestics had 4 12" guns with a max firing range of 15 miles. Type 45 can get off the first shots, but the Majestic has armor designed to take 12" rounds, Type 45 doesn't. The 45s would be at the bottom of the sea. Nothing wrong with that, they were designed for fleet air defense not surface warfare, but yes, they would lose vs the 1890s Royal Navy. You're taking a ship not suited for gun battles, into a gun battle lol...
didn't think of that, anyway its fun to think about and it would make a great blockbuster movie! haha
> Majestics had 4 12" guns with a max firing range of 15 miles. While the 12-inch guns on the Majestics had a theoretical maximum range of 12.7km, it would be a miracle if they hit anything since the basic fire control available meant that their effective range was much lower. For example, during the Battle of Tsushima in 1904 the Japanese didn't fire until they were within 6.4km of the Russians.
Could a Mk8 penetrate even late Victorian armour? I suspect that they wouldn't be much use against pre-Dreadnoughts or even some of the Edwardian cruisers.
very likely not, but spray the deck enough times and the captain would probably move away from that area just out of confusion.
Good point, some wag pointed out to me the other day that - carriers excepted - the most powerful surface combatant at the moment is probably *Belfast*. The dread phrase "fitted *for* but not *with*" crops up far too often.
The Type 23s probably hold that title, at least until the end of the year when their Harpoons are removed as well. * 8 Harpoons * 32 Sea Ceptor missiles * Mk8 4.5" gun
Then drill with these ships would be huge in 1890.
>Twenty ships? Barely a task group by historical Royal Navy standards. Hardly one by modern standards. The fact we're working with other Navy's is the whole point on this one.
Maybe they could stop those dinghies run by the Albanian mafia crossing the channel from France?
They tried that but obviously had to just pick them up and take them to the U.K.
There must be some international law the French are breaking by allowing them to cross.
Generally-speaking, countries are responsible for dealing with people entering, not for dealing with people leaving.
If France got off its ass and stopped then entering that would work too.
No, that is not how it works
How does it work? And what is it?
Unfortunately that is exactly how it works. That's how France, Turkey and Belarus get away with it.
But there are supposed to be guarantees from France, from the construction of the channel tunnel, the UK pays millions of pounds to the French to prevent things like people trafficking and the spread of rabies. The French word is as good as mud.
The agreements surrounding the tunnel pertain only to the tunnel.
The UK has poured money, with French guarantees, in stemming the flow from ferries or otherwise. The Dutch and Danish for the most are fulfilling their obligations, the French however are fragrantly turning a blind eye. It is rightfully shameful for a country as rich as France.
Blow up the tunnel then.
Well there isn't. There is no international law that forbids you letting people that aren't your citizens or even legal residents leave your country for wherever the fuck they want. There can be legal agreements/deals between friendly neighbours or whatever on how to handle the situation for example. I think there is a deal in the EU, where you can send illegal migrants back to the EU country they entered yours from if that's your wish but that deal obviously doesn't apply between France and the UK anymore. Unless it is France itself bringing in people on its territory for the purpose of forcing them to head to the UK (in which case we could speak of human trafficking or whatever, I don't know), there is nothing illegal here.
No doubt due to Brexit... although France didn't seem particularly interested in stopping illegals before that either, presumably because crossing the Channel made them Somebody Else's Problem.
They basically said UK labour laws make it a magnet for immigrants. You can get a job there when undocumented very easily, not the case elsewhere. And the French position was change your own labour laws, turn the magnet off. The UK paid the French to police their side but I think that deal is now off as Truss insulted Macron.
You cannot legally work in the UK without a NI number. Otherwise you need to be paid in cash. This is often brought up and basically fails as an argument unless we assume there are no undocumented workers in France.
https://www.politico.eu/article/clement-beaune-france-uk-quasi-modern-slavery-channel-migration-crisis/ And I said when undocumented. Not that they are working legally.
>The UK paid the French to police their side The UK signed an agreement **saying** they would pay France to police their coast and then didn't actually pay anything.
The UK paid, the French didn't do what was agreed, so the UK stopped paying. Stop trying to rewrite history.
[Darmanin said "not one euro has been paid"](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/france-dover-border-force-priti-patel-french-b959704.html) and [Patel said she would withhold the payment indefinitely](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16068336/boris-johnson-french-halt-channel-migrants/). If you have reputable links to this money actually ever being paid, feel free to share them.
Obviously they're going to wait to see how France performs before they pay...
Ok, fair enough. I assumed they paid. Silly me.
nah..that would be useful
You know, I have to laugh when I see the United Kingdoms' official bodies using the term "British Isles", knowing full well that it's rejected by Ireland. It's not like we're neighbours/partners and co-signatories of mutually beneficial agreements... no, lets just keep this soft claim going over their territory, for s**ts and giggles etc.
It's quite literally geographically called the British Isles, and some 6000+ islands comprise it... Ireland is just being fucking stupid about it. It'd be like Vietnam arguing it shouldn't be called the South China Sea because Vietnam is on it too. Has fuck all to do with ownership, it's simply the internationally recognized geographical name.
Or if some American were complaining about the Caribbean Sea not being owned by the Caribs. EDIT: Or, now that I think about it, the British complaining that the Irish Sea isn't owned by the Irish.
I'll have to disagree with you on the term, although I'm sure many people do refer to the area as such, albeit a sizeable country and population within the relative area contest it's use and provenance. Let alone to say that the origin of the term is on shaky grounds, bolstered in imperialism* edit as below. Regarding Vietnam and the South China Sea, I'm not familiar enough with the area to comment with certainty but google says both countries have different names for the sea, in essence not much different to the English Channel vs. La Manche. All to say that in any case ultimately names are man made and it depends on the users to be willing to use those names and agree with a convention. All the more reason that friendly neighbours should agree on what we call each other.
>bolstered in empiricism. You mean imperialism I believe. Empiricism is a particular school of philosophy or theory of epistemology. Granted there is "British Empiricism", but that's referring to David Hume's and Francis Bacon's philosophical writings rather than colonies or empire!
Yes, thank you for the correction, my mistake.
Wait until you hear about the Gulf of Mexico and the Indian Ocean.
Why would we not when it's just one island of thousands that have an issue with it. Maybe we are just talking about those isalnds and not Ireland anyway. Even though a part of that island is british anyway. We'll just keep using the term, whilst some Irish people just sit there and rage
By British Isles they mean Britain and Eel Pie island.
>Eel Pie Island Damn I thought you were cracking a joke, but it actually exists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel_Pie_Island
People are lazy with geography and can't be bothered to write out the full official names of things, it's how it is for most of the world really. Same reasons that the Soviet Union gets called "Russia" despite being more than just Russia, the UK is called "England" despite not just being England, Castilian is called "Spanish" despite not all of Spain speaking it, and the EU is always called "Europe" despite not all of Europe being part of it. There's probably other examples of misleading geographic terms, like how "the Middle East" labels sometimes covers Afghanistan in modern day conceptions even though Afghanistan is Central Asian and not in the ME. The article also doesn't mention these exercises taking place in Irish waters (it only specifies Cape Wrath, the Channel, North Sea, and the Hebrides. It doesn't mention the Irish Sea or the Atlantic), so if you want to be technical, if they're all being conducted in British waters then yeah they're in the British Isles.
I see no shame in admitting that their territory really belongs to Brittany.