The day the navy will die

[Thedelldays]

Just scrap the subs along with the rest of the Navy (except aicraft carriers). The whole focre is totally irrelevent nowadays anyway and just a relic from the past.

errm....lol

 

during the work I had done...quite a few of high ranking army (along with the navy) officers have unofficially said that they would not say not to the RAF being scrapped and split into the army and navy...

 

would never happen imo..as for your point.I wont react to that as it is clearly bait

[Weston Super Saint]

we need a poll.

 

What will kill the navy first

 

A)STI/D's

B)Women on subs

C)HIV/AIDS

D)Terrorists

E) Lack of funding

F) Thedelldays boring them

 

G) Ze Germans

H) Ze Russians

I) Ze Americans

[Weston Super Saint]

errm....lol

 

during the work I had done...quite a few of high ranking army (along with the navy) officers have unofficially said that they would not say not to the RAF being scrapped and split into the army and navy...

 

would never happen imo..as for your point.I wont react to that as it is clearly bait

 

Army and Navy officers in dissing the RAF non shocker.

[Roman]

errm....lol

 

during the work I had done...quite a few of high ranking army (along with the navy) officers have unofficially said that they would not say not to the RAF being scrapped and split into the army and navy...

 

would never happen imo..as for your point.I wont react to that as it is clearly bait

 

This is true. And I can confirm that Stanley is a spy - he's only doing it to demoralise you. As, clearly, is WSS with that accent.

[Saint in Paradise]

A sad thing to say but women have at least as much worry about being sexually assaulted by their

own collegues as by an enemy according to fiqures re the number of women soldiers with the U.S.

forces in Iraq are concerned.

[TopGun]

errm....lol

 

during the work I had done...quite a few of high ranking army (along with the navy) officers have unofficially said that they would not say not to the RAF being scrapped and split into the army and navy...

 

would never happen imo..as for your point.I wont react to that as it is clearly bait

 

Usual inter force rivalry IMO. Each has a role to play in different situations. The Navy has had the least to do recently (in terms of war) which is why it is the one that gets cut all the time. The UK has less than a third of the amount of destroyers and frigates than it had in 1982. Obviously the current ones have better fire power and range but it's still very stretched.

[saintwarwick]

Usual inter force rivalry IMO. Each has a role to play in different situations. The Navy has had the least to do recently (in terms of war) which is why it is the one that gets cut all the time. The UK has less than a third of the amount of destroyers and frigates than it had in 1982. Obviously the current ones have better fire power and range but it's still very stretched.

 

I think you'll find all forces are stretched, the current strength of the armed forces is at 96.9% of what is required.

 

On a different note, when I joined the army in 1973 there was 330,000 serving officers and soldiers. When I left in 1997 that had reduced to 120,000. The navy and RAF have been hit with similar percentage cutbacks.

[Weston Super Saint]

I think you'll find all forces are stretched, the current strength of the armed forces is at 96.9% of what is required.

 

On a different note, when I joined the army in 1973 there was 330,000 serving officers and soldiers. When I left in 1997 that had reduced to 120,000. The navy and RAF have been hit with similar percentage cutbacks.

 

You could argue that technological advances have diminished the amount of human input needed???

[JohnnyFartPants]

I think you'll find all forces are stretched, the current strength of the armed forces is at 96.9% of what is required.

 

On a different note, when I joined the army in 1973 there was 330,000 serving officers and soldiers. When I left in 1997 that had reduced to 120,000. The navy and RAF have been hit with similar percentage cutbacks.

 

89,000 when I joined the RAF in 1984 and I believe its 30 something thousand now.

[Calvin]

Pink submarines are easier to see and women are rubbish at reversing.

 

We have other forces which didn't used to have women in and now do and for as far as I'm concerned they're still just as good.

 

Sarcasm is allowed in The Lounge?

[Viking Warrior]

...................

Edited 7 December, 2008 by Viking Warrior

[Bath Saint]

Somebody should do an FOI to the MOD to find out how many men and women have been casevaced back from Iraq and bastion for non battlefield injuries or medical ailments ( I saw the figures up until 2007) and they indicate that a numberwoman were unable to cope with rear echelon duties let alone battlefield conditions. there were some men as well (but they were mainly from front line areas.)

 

I think subby delldays has a very good point about women and boats.

 

Anyone understand any of this?

 

I think he was writing in a Joycean stream of consciousness.

[Weston Super Saint]

Anyone understand any of this?

 

I think he was writing in a Joycean stream of consciousness.

 

I think he was saying that because people get frightened when bullets are fired at them, they shouldn't work under the sea in a submarine.

[TopGun]

Rear echelon duties intrigues me!

[mack rill]

Dull Days are you saying Fanny should not go down on Boats?

[saintwarwick]

You could argue that technological advances have diminished the amount of human input needed???

 

Technical advances did in fact aid the reduction of armed forces but the reduction was far greater than the ability to perform without being overstretched. That was from my own personal experiences where the days and weeks became longer after the last cutbacks in the early nineties (options for change).

[saintwarwick]

89,000 when I joined the RAF in 1984 and I believe its 30 something thousand now.

 

Provisional figures April 2008: 43,390 which is less than half in just over twenty years.

[Viking Warrior]

........................

Edited 7 December, 2008 by Viking Warrior

[thesaint sfc]

Wouldn't stand a chance without them though....

[Weston Super Saint]

Rear Echelon

 

The service people on here will know what that means.

 

Basically the REMfs as they are known (Rear Echelon Mother ****ers)

are those that do not go anywhere near the front line of the conflict.

 

The admin jockeys Doctors and nurses, slop jockeys, unless they are employed at the FEBA.

In terms of Afghan, I refer to those based at bastion and not down town Helmand or Kajaki for instance.

 

Iraq is a bit diffferent now as the troops are all based on the outskirts of basra,

and even if you are a REMf now , it can be might unpleasant, it was bad there early last year, Soanybody based there was not a real remf.

 

For those I have still confused, I was referring to those serviceman who were well away from any danger apart from the odd scorpian sting or D&V outbreaks.

 

Would a REMf be responsible for paying wages

[stthrobber]

Women are fine on surface vessels, that they've proven that over time, although there are still some issues.

 

However, the issues that do still exist would only be amplified onboard a sub'.

 

Can they do the job? Yes.

 

Should they be given the opportunity? Probably not.

 

Well I've been out of the Navy since 1986 and women weren't allowed on ships when I was in, but there are jobs that women can do equally as well as men, and some jobs that they can't.

 

My problem with women on the front line is that if women want equality then they should be able to do all jobs as well as their male counterparts.

 

I was a communicator and I have no doubt that a woman could do my job equally as well, including climbing 60 feet up a mast and redoing a copper wire aerial, though I suspect these days, such aerials are rendered obsolete by satellites.

 

However, re-arming a ship for instance, which was done manually when I was in, by means of sticking a very heavy 4.5 inch shell over your shoulder and lugging it from the arse end of the ship, to the magazine up for'ard.

 

Of course there are logistical problems that have been overcome in surface ships (skimmers), but as far as I know, subs have hot bunking, which means that a bunk is shared by at least 2 people, one on duty and one off duty.

 

That would cause all sorts of problems to start with.

 

I wouldn't always accept what a Lt Cdr says above that of an experienced rating either.

 

I remember having to clean our messes and work areas every now and again so the captain could come along and rip our hard work up for arse paper. This ritual humiliation was called "Captain's rounds" and some of these chinless wonders were convinced that the men liked this cleaning lark, when in fact it was, and probably still is, deeply despised.

 

Officers in the forces are like any other class of people, you get good ones and you get bad ones

[stthrobber]

You could argue that technological advances have diminished the amount of human input needed???

 

Yes and no. Cutbacks are fine as long as the service can still do the job.

 

For instance, our forces during the Falklands War had no early air warning capability.

 

Our type 42 destroyers were built 50 feet shorter than their original design to save money. They had one fire main water supply which, in the case of the Sheffield, was severed by an Exocet missile, leaving its crew virtually unable to fight the fires except by means of a mobile pump at the back end. That extra 50 feet was included in type 42s built after the war.

 

Many of the smaller guns and missile systems were already obsolete by the time of the Falklands and too many of our ships were ill equipped to defend themselves. It was a fact that the 4 surface units lost in the war were almost the most modern available and they were all destroyed with consumate ease, yet the older ships that took hits, like the Glamorgan, survived being hit by an Exocet and made it back to the UK safely.

 

Technical advances are one thing, but they are expensive and governments tend to not spend the cash until they absolutely have to, and this lack of investment is still ongoing today, as witnessed in Afghanistan and Iraq

[Minsk]

I left the RN in 2004. I remember the majority of sailors in uproar when it was announced that women would serve on ships. It happened, and the navy is still going strong.

 

There are many jobs which women can do equally as well as men and, from personal experience of training them, I found that on average the female sailors were intelligent than their male counterparts. Of course, what they do lack (in general) is physical strength. I don't see how physical strength is an issue for someone who spends 98% of their time at sea sat in an Ops/Control Room, in a Galley, Store Room, etc.

 

Then there is the 'hot-bunking' issue on subs. Providing 'girls' hot-bunk with other 'girls' in a 'girl' only mess I don't see a problem here either.

 

However, if it was my call I would probably put wrens on Trident subs but not on attack subs. After all the entire crew of Trident subs are known to be nothing but 'Bomber Queens'.