{"id":153483,"date":"2024-02-21T07:00:54","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=153483"},"modified":"2024-02-20T23:26:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T04:26:21","slug":"uk-navy-fallen-on-hard-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=153483","title":{"rendered":"UK Navy fallen on hard times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UK recruiting posters 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Been some disparaging articles about the Brit Navy. From the 12th:<\/p>\n

A UK Royal Navy aircraft carrier canceled its launch to join a NATO exercise on Sunday, the second similar failure in a week.<\/p>\n

A UK carrier was meant to be a centerpiece of NATO’s Steadfast Defender exercises taking place off the coast of Norway.<\/p>\n

Its twin, modern carriers cost some $3.7 billion each. They are among the newest in the world and a clear demonstration of the UK’s aspiration to be a first-rate military.<\/p>\n

But neither of them could make it \u2014 the first candidate, HMS Queen Elizabeth, broke down on the eve of sailing.<\/p>\n

Its replacement, HMS Prince of Wales, was meant to sail on Sunday, but the launch was abruptly pulled.<\/p>\n

Sky News reported that crowds had gathered to watch the vessel depart, only to find out that it wouldn’t.<\/p>\n

It set sail the next day instead from its home harbor in Portsmouth, England.<\/p>\n

But critics say that that long-standing government underfunding has impacted the Royal Navy’s combat readiness.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Business Insider<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nothing like two high-profile ships failing to sail…too, you have to have the sailors to man<\/del>\u00a0 sailor<\/del>\u00a0 person it.<\/p>\n

Royal Navy warships are engaged in conflict for the first time in 20 years and HMS Diamond, in targeting several Houthi drones in the Red Sea, became the first to have shot down an aerial target in combat since 1991. But such is the shortage of sailors that two frigates, HMS Westminster and HMS Argyll, are to be mothballed before replacements are introduced from 2026; and this week Carlos Del Toro, the US navy secretary, called for the UK to reassess the size of its armed forces.<\/p>\n

The latest figures show that on a net basis 5,790 people left the armed forces in the year to 30 September 2023. Army and navy recruitment targets have been missed every year since 2010, according to figures compiled by Labour. Royal Navy personnel numbers are 5% below the target set in 2015, and RAF numbers are 9% below target, while the army is only ahead because its target was cut to 73,000 in 2021, the smallest size it has been since about 1714, according to National Army Museum calculations.<\/p>\n

Richard Mitchell, a former member of the Parachute regiment said he joined after the 9\/11 attacks when \u201cthey couldn\u2019t get people into the Para depot fast enough\u201d. However, he said, the morality of recent conflicts had been ambiguous. \u201cIraq was exposed as the big lie, and Afghanistan as a complete failure. Young people look back on recent history and worry the same will happen again.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today’s news is just as encouraging:<\/p>\n

\n

The Ministry of Defence on Tuesday night confirmed an “anomaly” had occurred with the drill involving HMS Vanguard, but a spokesperson insisted that the nuclear deterrent – the cornerstone of the UK’s defences – “remains safe, secure and effective”.<\/p>\n

The fault had something to do with it being a test-firing, with a source saying that the launch would have been successful had it been carried out for real with a nuclear warhead.\u00a0\u00a0 Sky News<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Pretty sure that on this side of the pond, saying “well, it would have worked if we really meant to”\u00a0 has the usual effective range of an excuse: 0 meters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Been some disparaging articles about the Brit Navy. From the 12th: A UK Royal Navy aircraft … UK Navy fallen on hard times<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220,306,119,682],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-floggings-will-continue-until-morale-improves","category-nato","category-navy","category-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=153483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=153483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=153483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=153483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}