Showing posts with label Naval. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Naval. Show all posts
Friday, 8 January 2010
The Mighty Mo Returns
The USS Missouri has returned to Pearl Harbor after a three-month refit looking like new. It is of course an incredibly historic battleship having hosted the signing of the surrender of Japan at the end of WW2 and fought in the Korean and First Gulf Wars. In 1993 the Missouri was decommissioned and preserved as a museum ship at Pearl Harbor. There are no preserved Royal Navy battleships. A pity really.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Don't Cancel the Big Ticket Programmes
The next public spending round is going to be very difficult. Although Macavity will be keen to offer new popular spending promises to the electorate prior to the election so he can portray the Tories as dire takersaway, Treasury will not be amused and will insist that he cuts other things to pay for the handouts.
Against this background Defence will be particularly vulnerable. Britain is currently locked in mortal combat with an enemy who understands and applies the principles of asymmetric warfare to devastating effect. The outlook is bleak, the policy objectives muddy and the duration uncertain but long. Despite all this Macavity will be keen to make swingeing cuts in the high value items of the MoD's budget and that almost certainly means the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and Future Aircraft Carrier (CVF), already reduced to only one (what happens during necessary refits is anyone's guess). Both of these programmes are multi-billion pound tickets and because the current conflict in Afghanistan is all about helicopters, protection and boots on the ground will be cut or worse terminated without much public reaction.
This would be utterly disastrous. We must not forget that the Afghanistan campaign is being conducted in an environment of total air dominance by ISAF - the Taliban does not have a single aircraft let alone a credible counter-air capability. Pakistan, on the other hand, does. Macavity will not understand about commanding the air to win the ground battle and so will see no military risk in cutting the JSF programme and doing away with the remaining CVF. Let us hope that Service Chiefs will be able to persuade him of the foolishness of such a course of action.
Were they to fail we must then reconcile ourselves to forever give up the notion of "punching above our weight" and so pursue a similar military strategy to Denmark.
Against this background Defence will be particularly vulnerable. Britain is currently locked in mortal combat with an enemy who understands and applies the principles of asymmetric warfare to devastating effect. The outlook is bleak, the policy objectives muddy and the duration uncertain but long. Despite all this Macavity will be keen to make swingeing cuts in the high value items of the MoD's budget and that almost certainly means the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and Future Aircraft Carrier (CVF), already reduced to only one (what happens during necessary refits is anyone's guess). Both of these programmes are multi-billion pound tickets and because the current conflict in Afghanistan is all about helicopters, protection and boots on the ground will be cut or worse terminated without much public reaction.
This would be utterly disastrous. We must not forget that the Afghanistan campaign is being conducted in an environment of total air dominance by ISAF - the Taliban does not have a single aircraft let alone a credible counter-air capability. Pakistan, on the other hand, does. Macavity will not understand about commanding the air to win the ground battle and so will see no military risk in cutting the JSF programme and doing away with the remaining CVF. Let us hope that Service Chiefs will be able to persuade him of the foolishness of such a course of action.
Were they to fail we must then reconcile ourselves to forever give up the notion of "punching above our weight" and so pursue a similar military strategy to Denmark.
Monday, 5 October 2009
US Army Reduces Carbon Footprint
The US Army is taking delivery of a self-contained "energy-from-waste" installation produced by Qinetiq in the UK. The plant is designed to produce more energy than it consumes by converting waste to storable combustible gases using a process of pyrolysis involving an oxygen-free environment.
This plant, easily deployable in two ISO containers, will enable the US Army to significantly decrease the carbon footprint of management waste plants. Already successfully operating in HMS Ocean, the Royal Navy helicopter assault ship, the plant shows much promise and is a great demonstrator for the application of new technology to combat global warming and climate change.
Fortuitously it enables me to blog about two different interests in the same post!
HMS Ocean
This plant, easily deployable in two ISO containers, will enable the US Army to significantly decrease the carbon footprint of management waste plants. Already successfully operating in HMS Ocean, the Royal Navy helicopter assault ship, the plant shows much promise and is a great demonstrator for the application of new technology to combat global warming and climate change.
Fortuitously it enables me to blog about two different interests in the same post!
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