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Supercarriers a step nearer

10:21am Thursday 3rd July 2008

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WORK on building two new aircraft carriers will move a step closer when terms are signed on the Royal Navy's flagship, HMS Ark Royal, in Hampshire later today.

The new Royal Navy aircraft carriers - HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales - will cost a total of £4 billion and secure 10,000 jobs in the UK.

Work on the 65,000-ton ships is to be carried out at Portsmouth, where the on-board ceremony will be held, as well as at Govan in Glasgow, Rosyth in Fife and Barrow in Furness.

The primary contractor in the deal is BVT, the new company formed by Hampshire based defence giants BAE and VT's decision to pool their shipbuilding facilities.

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Andy, Locks Heath says...
12:50pm Thu 3 Jul 08

If our defence budget is really that strapped I'd sooner this money was spent on better armour for our troops, and a new heavy helicopter from Westland so we never have to buy another Chinook from Boeing after the way our "friends" in the USA refused to sell us the software that would allow our recently purchased Chinooks to operate. But seeing as we could not operate these carriers without US protection and blessing anyway we might as well name them the USS Poodle and the USS Toady and be done with it.

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southy, redbridge says...
2:56pm Thu 3 Jul 08

andy we do not need the usa protection or blessing,on the high seas,the common wealth navy is the biggest in the world.when the usa navy in the atlantic,med,indain southern and artic ocean it uses common wealth navy to protect them.the royal navy is only apart of the common wealth navy.and the army needs the royal navy and air force to cover them when in major battles

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Sir Jonathon Band, says...
3:28pm Thu 3 Jul 08

Erm, the Commonwealth does not have a navy.

It's members have their navies, but there is no military alliance between Commonwealth states.

And even if there was, the only ones with adequate sized fleets would be the UK, Australia and India.

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Andy, Locks Heath says...
4:10pm Thu 3 Jul 08

According to Janes Fighting Ships the US Navy's tonnage is greater than the world's next 15 largest navies combined, with 13 carriers built or in plan all larger than our two. So whichever way we look at it, our two carriers are not going to make much difference to them, but at the same time they can't operate without America's goodwill. Each of our carriers will need a support group that we can barely manage so we will also be reliant on our "friends" in NATO (remember? those "friends" like Germany who won't send troops to Afghanistan, or like Belgium who won't even sell ammunition to us in case we use it). No. let's protect our own lads first and foremost, because nobody else will, and forget these monuments to Labour's vanity.

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southy, redbridge says...
4:33pm Thu 3 Jul 08

jonathon band there is a alliance between the commonwealth it was used last when iraq got invaded,and dont forget the south african navy canadain navy and new zealand navy,they all have a navy that is has big has the british then theres a load of smaller navys.
andy when the usa aircarft carriers was in the med last it had 4 royal navy ships protecting it.has was the usa carriers in the persain gulf had austalian and british navy around it to protect them.if you got to blame some one on the poor condiction of our arm forces.blame the 1979 to 1989 goverment they done more damage than any goverment.

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Sir Jonathon Band, says...
5:02pm Thu 3 Jul 08

No, Southy, that was a number of nations fighting under the auspice of the UN. Being allies in a single conflict does not an alliance make.

The Commonwealth of Nations is NOT a military alliance, and I challenge you to find my anything that suggests that it is.

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southy, redbridge says...
5:09pm Thu 3 Jul 08

falklands war there was a autralians and new landers involed to.

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Sir Jonathon Band, says...
5:15pm Thu 3 Jul 08

southy wrote:
falklands war there was a autralians and new landers involed to.
So?

That does that mean? Russia fought on the same side as the US in WW2, doesn't mean they ever had an alliance.

I'm going home now, so you can have all night to try and come up with real evidence, such as documents proving that there is an alliance between ALL the Commonwealth states.

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southy, redbridge says...
5:28pm Thu 3 Jul 08

jon/band russian did end up fighting with us even lo it on diffrent fronts and they did have an alliance, they even declared war on japan with us and usa when the fighting ended in europe.
the austrailians was the first one;s on the sceen.there ice breaker and 2 corvettes whitch was later joined by the australian sbs who made a landing on west island way ahead of the main invadion force,the new zealands ships where put on picket duty.

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Skeptik, soton says...
5:58pm Thu 3 Jul 08

Southy knows all ! The Falklands, the resting place of 8 of my comrades, and where we had 54 wounded. I have not sussed this Southy character out, either he is completely barking mad, or he just emits drivel for the hell of it, Commonwealth Navy my rrs. Andy Locks Heath is right the mighty US navy stands alone and can project power the world over, with or without the assistance of friendly forces, in fact the US reserve fleet is impressive. If one of these carriers of the RN is seagoing where are they going to get the escort/battle group from, and as Andy points out will another country agree with the British government or as is more likely we will have to rely on uncle Sam.

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southy, redbridge says...
6:14pm Thu 3 Jul 08

lol skeptik tell me some thing m8 do you know the diffrence between loading line,commision line and plimsoll line just seeing how much you know.

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Skeptik, soton says...
6:45pm Thu 3 Jul 08

Have not got a clue - but it proves more about you than me. what possible bearing that question has is beyond me, I am a retired soldier not a mariner.

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Ken, Stubbington says...
7:10pm Thu 3 Jul 08

Will the cowardly crew surrender to the Iranian coastguard, because it's not "PC" to fight back?

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southy, redbridge says...
7:25pm Thu 3 Jul 08

my acknowledgement to you m8,i am ex-navy.i lost friends down there to.well a loading line is the mark between hull and the side of the ship where the ship is safe weight limit,normaly you get a change of colours on this mark.the commission line is the white line that sits on the loading line( some times black if ship is white),the plimsoll line is the mark on a ship that carrys the letters NAW,NAS,F,T,TF,and other letters depends on where that ship mainly go's to whitch letters it carrys (naw = north atlantic winter/nas is the same but summer/t=tropics/tf=
tropic fresh ect),go back to the commission line,this line is to show that its can be called up for navy service if need be ie:- like the QE2 was called up for the falklands war,any way the bulk of any navy tonnage is made up with commission ships has the british merchant navy dont amount to much any more so the navy tonnage drop in a big way.and when you look at the size of the usa fleet some of them are like small towns.like that aircraft carrier that called into southampton its tonnage was more than 3 british frigates,tonnage can be so miss leading.

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southy, redbridge says...
8:54pm Thu 3 Jul 08

Looks like I was wrong yet again :-(

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southy, redbridge says...
9:05pm Thu 3 Jul 08

southy wrote:
Looks like I was wrong yet again :-(
i see you got a sence of humour that's good its needed in this messed up world ken

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southy, redbridge says...
9:24pm Thu 3 Jul 08

picture of one type of plimsoll line.the circle with the line running though it is the lloyds register mark
http://media.allrefe
r.com/s4/l/p0011334-
plimsoll-line.gif

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ken, Stubbington says...
9:37pm Thu 3 Jul 08

I've needed a sense of humour shipmate having served my 22 years on the green and lumpy stuff, including much time on all three of the current a/c carriers in the Grey Funnel Line.

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southy, redbridge says...
9:51pm Thu 3 Jul 08

you might know my m8 soapy.
could you not get on the endurance A171 1/2

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Ken, Stubbington says...
10:08pm Thu 3 Jul 08

Nearest I got to anything like that was on D91 in '86/87 ... South Georgia and all that. We made the national press for all the wrong reasons (dodgy skipper, say no more)!

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southy, redbridge says...
10:12pm Thu 3 Jul 08

lol your right there best not to say to much about that lol **** that song comes to mind mad kelly lol

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Brent, London says...
12:54am Fri 4 Jul 08

I can't help but get the feeling that the defence budget is being stretched on purpose. It wouldn't take much more stretching before we had to ask the EU for a few nuts and bolts to keep the fleet afloat, and it wouldn't take much more than that to make the once proud RN part of the Kreigsmarine or whatever the Brussels mob decide to call a pan-European navy.

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southy, redbridge says...
3:26pm Fri 4 Jul 08

Brent wrote:
I can\'t help but get the feeling that the defence budget is being stretched on purpose. It wouldn\'t take much more stretching before we had to ask the EU for a few nuts and bolts to keep the fleet afloat, and it wouldn\'t take much more than that to make the once proud RN part of the Kreigsmarine or whatever the Brussels mob decide to call a pan-European navy.
dont think this will happen,its one of the thing's the usa wants us to do,and they only want it so it will break up the commonwealth navy.

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