The sad state of the Royal Navy makes it obvious they are in no shape to support their NATO obligations. Which reminds me, time for Argentina to take back the Falklands, especially now that DONROE puts the U.S. on the Argentine side?
Don’t know we’d support the Argentines even now…the locals never wanted to be Argentines and the islands are well into the South Atlantic..but the Brits certainly couldn’t do much to stop the Argentines.
The Brits, and I use that term rather than RN, surged everything that floated (that was not on a NATO tasking) to the Falklands. I guess CDR S would disapprove, but MS Thatcher was of the Shock and Awe school. 30 plus combatants including 2 light Carriers, 4 subs, as well as an Ice breaker, two liners, a bunch of cargo and tankers scarfed up from trade and a half dozen oil field support vessels that did yeoman's work as mobile repair facilities.
When the Brits sent the QE2, the Argies should have known Margaret was serious
UK circa 1982 had the benefit of knowing the North Atlantic was covered by their US allies. The PM could sortie her fleet with confidence that their backyard was covered and victualling was possible without sailing all the way home.
Rubbish. If you look at what went South there was more of the Fleet that didn't go than did. But you are an American. Don't let facts or history beyond yesterday get in the way of the constant flow of bull ox from the US of A.
Standing across the street from 10 Downing when the Argentinian war began (the entire street wasn't secured at that time) I heard a woman say: "No doubt we are going to war; macho Argentinians will never submit to a woman!"
Take back? How can they take back something that was never theirs? Do you know Middle Name Wan that the Argies were still slaughtering indigenous South American Indians 30 plus years after our colony was established? Like most Americans short on knowledge and short on thinking. When are you going to give up Hawaii which stole? Argentine are colonists. The Falklanders are colonists. The only difference Middle Name Wan is that there were no indigenous islanders. This is why the world loves America, not. Ignorant. Arrogant. In equal and very large measures.
Never theirs? The colonists Argentines, Secret Sailor, slaughtered the indigenous just like the Brits and other European powers (French, Dutch, Portuguese) did worldwide. Especially on a big scale in their search for natural resources to exploit for their home manufacturing industrial machine. Egypt, South Africa, India, the American colonies and West Indies, etc. And yes, the U.S. Navy forcibly took over Hawaii (for white pineapple farmers and cattle ranchers) and hasn't given it back (like Russia and Crimea). It's all sad but historical fact. But why the vitriol and name calling?
This is a reminder (as many have said with variations): we have an 11 carrier navy in a 15 carrier world. Our standard must be the Royal Navy’s 19th century standard of being larger than, and able to fight simultaneously, the 2nd and 3rd largest navies. I suppose that would be China and Russia. We’re not really in a position to do that at the same time we fight a regional war in the Middle East.
Here’s the thing. The way we treat the crew is abominable. Consider the nukes. The USN has a considerable investment in the atomic watchstanders; but, they can’t keep them after six. If you were a young man assigned to the USS Ford, would you reenlist? No liberty. Are we over a full year at sea for the Ford? No toilets. They must be on some kind of modified General Quarters, maybe port and starboard? How long has that been going on? Who on earth would sign up for more years of that?
Nukes are not the only skills on the Ford that are being driven out of the Navy. Heck even the mess cooks could do better as civilians.
We are too hard on our sailors. We push them past the breaking point, then wonder why they don’t reenlist. I don’t think we can crew 15 CVNs.
I mean, the Air Force, and now Space Force, are the only services who have ever been known for treating their people, especially their enlisted, as actual people.
Army, Marines, and Navy have been terrible for pretty much forever when it comes to making life more comfortable for their service members, and the families of those service members. Unmarried lower enlisted, in particular, get treated like trash, and then the leaders act surprised when they bounce after their first enlistment ends.
While it wasn't the defining reason I got out at the end of my four year enlistment, shitty barracks life was one of those reasons.
Or the ship maintenance requirements. I remember destroyers trading operational radar components between ships of a squadron so the next ship could deploy. Then there was the time I was asked to certify that a particular FF could deploy to WestPac - my response to the type commander that I wouldn’t certify that ship to circumnavigate Ford Island. They deployed it anyway, but it limped all the time it was out there.
Like it or not we’re still at that threshold, even if the borders are wonky. The Russian Navy arguably peaked in the Age of Sail, had an abortive secondary peak in the late 19th/early 20th century before being taken down several pegs at different times by Crimea, institutional corruption, Tsushima, and above all WWI and the revolutionary aftermath. The late Soviet period was its most recent peak and it has degraded heavily since then with essentially zilch above water aircraft projection, the Ukrainians heavily damaging or destroying several ships, lack of facilities (and the typical death spiral of reassigning crew either to land combat or jail), and so on. The Kremlin’s fleets especially in bastion and its sub forces are nothing to sneeze at but they are greatly outmatched and they know it, especially with Sweden and Finland joining NATO and making range of action in the Baltic very hard.
That leaves the PRC, and especially the PLAN and PAP maritime forces. Which are growing at a formidable rate and have a regional alliance but are still not operations tested, and blocked in by Taiwan and Japan. They are in a position to possibly change that within the next few years and so are the threat to watch, but they aren’t there yet.
All true enough, but to ensure our supremacy we must make a ‘mobilization level’ effort to rebuild our sea power - and I say this as a Vietnam era greensuiter. We need to take rearmament seriously in a way that takes huge swathes out of the welfare state and reinvigorates the militia against domestic enemies.
Agreed there indeed, which is the issue. Whatever one may think of this or that welfare initiative the depths of the dependency have become social and financial cancer. Unfortunately I fear we've been slow on the uptake for reducing it or ramping up naval presence and building capacity, which is not an easy issue to face. I am not sure about how capable the likes of the Russian Navy or the PLAN will be, and the former's build capacity is pitiful, but the latter is not.
Thanks for update. Been following RN woes on the sideline. The designated ready destroyer, HMS Dragon, isn't even ...ready. Amazing the polarity of every French combatant getting underway and the RN can't get one ship underway, let alone one of their CVBG's as a fighting force. Deployment strain metrics to watch for USN as the Gulf War III puts additional demands on USN to maintain presence in presumptive punitive blockades in 2 AOR's (Caribbean and N. Arabian Sea)
"It's what we've done that makes us what we are". Jim Croce....Applies to military operations and the logistics required to support current and future operations. All who read this Substack know that. When you have fond memories of what you used to be (UK, France) you can "feel" you are respected when you are neither respected nor capable. The object lesson is before us (see UK, France), and there lies our future if we don't see the lesson for what it is. Have to say there are those in the U.S. who feel that is not a bad thing, but a desired outcome. OBTW, imagine a Europe where two nuclear powers have Islamist governments. It appears to be closer than we realized...Kier Starmer feels that is where the UK future lies, if one can believe anything he says.
Let's not diss the French. As of 2025, the stockpile of the country's nuclear forces, the Force de dissuasion, is estimated at 290 deployed nuclear warheads. The Charles de Gaulle is an atomic-powered, flat deck, aircraft carrier with an operable catapult launch system. Incidentally, all of which are designed and built in France.
That was then, this is now...call it a reality check. Their government, now, that's an open-ended question that has been trending in a bad direction since I worked with them 20 years ago. When people cling to power against the national voting public in a "coalition required to create a government" nation state, you can find yourself with a command authority beholden to very strange bedfellows.
We'll see if French navy IAMD is any better than that of the Danish, German and UK navies against Houthi/other missiles? The Danes discovered that their vaunted Iver Huitfeldt's did not work as air defense ships, the Germans had a blue on blue engagement and the British discovered that failing to do a key software upgrade to their 4.5 inch guns made them unsuitable for antiair warfare.
Shall we all sing the Marseilles or go to Rick’s to hear “Play it Again, Sam”…
You must remember this… a kiss is but a kiss… as time goes by..
China is on the move into Iran!
I passed several good news alerts to the far side of the Pond.
French Colonialism is rising!
Life or death… I’ll mount my horse or camel and ride…
Oh… seriously… this morning at 0738 I saw two (2)speeding watercraft loaded down with containers, heading North up the Chesapeake Bay. Only one person at the stern of each boat… going fast! I used my binoculars to assess. The sun had just risen about 0700!
My impression - Military USCG, perhaps. Spread the word to protect our Bridges… The Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Thank you! Nurse Jane
Until President De Gaulle and after, who could listen to Mireille Mathieu. singing La Marseille and not feel 'a tightening of the sinews, the roaring of the blood'?
Since DeGaulle (who Eisenhower should have shot in 1943, and saved a year of war) who cares?
Is this the biggest hint that the French are banking on something big happening requiring an intervention, or at least choosing a side? That and of course Macron stopping off in Cyprus.
Should not be a surprise since we didn't have the ship to convoy through the Bab al-Mandab. We certain haven't commissioned two dozen figs in the past year.
"we don't have the ships to escort tankers through the Hormuz."
But gee whiz, isn't that one of the initial design requirements of the LCS, of which we have a bunch? Able to fight off swarms of small attack boats, etc.?
Old school axiom: Threat = Capability times intent. Reality: If your capability is very low, your intent is moot, and you are little or no threat. UK for sure, France is apparently trending towards the same area code.
Both are learning that not having an empire does not absolve you from being able to defend your self or your interests. Both thought the welfare state was more important. Scoop Jackson held that defense was the most important social program for very good reason.
The sad state of the Royal Navy makes it obvious they are in no shape to support their NATO obligations. Which reminds me, time for Argentina to take back the Falklands, especially now that DONROE puts the U.S. on the Argentine side?
Don’t know we’d support the Argentines even now…the locals never wanted to be Argentines and the islands are well into the South Atlantic..but the Brits certainly couldn’t do much to stop the Argentines.
The Brits, and I use that term rather than RN, surged everything that floated (that was not on a NATO tasking) to the Falklands. I guess CDR S would disapprove, but MS Thatcher was of the Shock and Awe school. 30 plus combatants including 2 light Carriers, 4 subs, as well as an Ice breaker, two liners, a bunch of cargo and tankers scarfed up from trade and a half dozen oil field support vessels that did yeoman's work as mobile repair facilities.
When the Brits sent the QE2, the Argies should have known Margaret was serious
UK circa 1982 had the benefit of knowing the North Atlantic was covered by their US allies. The PM could sortie her fleet with confidence that their backyard was covered and victualling was possible without sailing all the way home.
Rubbish. If you look at what went South there was more of the Fleet that didn't go than did. But you are an American. Don't let facts or history beyond yesterday get in the way of the constant flow of bull ox from the US of A.
I noticed your Navy couldn't even leave the docks even for a simple mission of show up.
Standing across the street from 10 Downing when the Argentinian war began (the entire street wasn't secured at that time) I heard a woman say: "No doubt we are going to war; macho Argentinians will never submit to a woman!"
Take back? How can they take back something that was never theirs? Do you know Middle Name Wan that the Argies were still slaughtering indigenous South American Indians 30 plus years after our colony was established? Like most Americans short on knowledge and short on thinking. When are you going to give up Hawaii which stole? Argentine are colonists. The Falklanders are colonists. The only difference Middle Name Wan is that there were no indigenous islanders. This is why the world loves America, not. Ignorant. Arrogant. In equal and very large measures.
You're really winning over support for the RN here.
If they are so good, let's pull back. Obviously, we are not needed or wanted.
Well Our President said it all when he told starmer to stay home and keep his ships we don't need them.
We Don't need the UK.
Never theirs? The colonists Argentines, Secret Sailor, slaughtered the indigenous just like the Brits and other European powers (French, Dutch, Portuguese) did worldwide. Especially on a big scale in their search for natural resources to exploit for their home manufacturing industrial machine. Egypt, South Africa, India, the American colonies and West Indies, etc. And yes, the U.S. Navy forcibly took over Hawaii (for white pineapple farmers and cattle ranchers) and hasn't given it back (like Russia and Crimea). It's all sad but historical fact. But why the vitriol and name calling?
Like the old saying, you don't get to go to war with the Navy you want, you go to war with the Navy you have. Good thing we're not at war.
Good thing the Brits are not at war
This is a reminder (as many have said with variations): we have an 11 carrier navy in a 15 carrier world. Our standard must be the Royal Navy’s 19th century standard of being larger than, and able to fight simultaneously, the 2nd and 3rd largest navies. I suppose that would be China and Russia. We’re not really in a position to do that at the same time we fight a regional war in the Middle East.
Here’s the thing. The way we treat the crew is abominable. Consider the nukes. The USN has a considerable investment in the atomic watchstanders; but, they can’t keep them after six. If you were a young man assigned to the USS Ford, would you reenlist? No liberty. Are we over a full year at sea for the Ford? No toilets. They must be on some kind of modified General Quarters, maybe port and starboard? How long has that been going on? Who on earth would sign up for more years of that?
Nukes are not the only skills on the Ford that are being driven out of the Navy. Heck even the mess cooks could do better as civilians.
We are too hard on our sailors. We push them past the breaking point, then wonder why they don’t reenlist. I don’t think we can crew 15 CVNs.
I mean, the Air Force, and now Space Force, are the only services who have ever been known for treating their people, especially their enlisted, as actual people.
Army, Marines, and Navy have been terrible for pretty much forever when it comes to making life more comfortable for their service members, and the families of those service members. Unmarried lower enlisted, in particular, get treated like trash, and then the leaders act surprised when they bounce after their first enlistment ends.
While it wasn't the defining reason I got out at the end of my four year enlistment, shitty barracks life was one of those reasons.
I got married at the end of my last three months, just off a CARIB deployment, The Career Sgt told me my next duty station was going to be Okinawa.
After four I said Bye.
Thing is, if we had 15 CVNs we could probably crew 15 CVNs, because we wouldn't be running the ships and crews ragged.
Hasn’t changed since the ‘70’s. Run ‘em hard … then not come close to meeting reenlistment goals.
Or the ship maintenance requirements. I remember destroyers trading operational radar components between ships of a squadron so the next ship could deploy. Then there was the time I was asked to certify that a particular FF could deploy to WestPac - my response to the type commander that I wouldn’t certify that ship to circumnavigate Ford Island. They deployed it anyway, but it limped all the time it was out there.
It is all but impossible to raise a family in that world now.
Like it or not we’re still at that threshold, even if the borders are wonky. The Russian Navy arguably peaked in the Age of Sail, had an abortive secondary peak in the late 19th/early 20th century before being taken down several pegs at different times by Crimea, institutional corruption, Tsushima, and above all WWI and the revolutionary aftermath. The late Soviet period was its most recent peak and it has degraded heavily since then with essentially zilch above water aircraft projection, the Ukrainians heavily damaging or destroying several ships, lack of facilities (and the typical death spiral of reassigning crew either to land combat or jail), and so on. The Kremlin’s fleets especially in bastion and its sub forces are nothing to sneeze at but they are greatly outmatched and they know it, especially with Sweden and Finland joining NATO and making range of action in the Baltic very hard.
That leaves the PRC, and especially the PLAN and PAP maritime forces. Which are growing at a formidable rate and have a regional alliance but are still not operations tested, and blocked in by Taiwan and Japan. They are in a position to possibly change that within the next few years and so are the threat to watch, but they aren’t there yet.
All true enough, but to ensure our supremacy we must make a ‘mobilization level’ effort to rebuild our sea power - and I say this as a Vietnam era greensuiter. We need to take rearmament seriously in a way that takes huge swathes out of the welfare state and reinvigorates the militia against domestic enemies.
Agreed there indeed, which is the issue. Whatever one may think of this or that welfare initiative the depths of the dependency have become social and financial cancer. Unfortunately I fear we've been slow on the uptake for reducing it or ramping up naval presence and building capacity, which is not an easy issue to face. I am not sure about how capable the likes of the Russian Navy or the PLAN will be, and the former's build capacity is pitiful, but the latter is not.
In any case thank you for your service.
Thanks for update. Been following RN woes on the sideline. The designated ready destroyer, HMS Dragon, isn't even ...ready. Amazing the polarity of every French combatant getting underway and the RN can't get one ship underway, let alone one of their CVBG's as a fighting force. Deployment strain metrics to watch for USN as the Gulf War III puts additional demands on USN to maintain presence in presumptive punitive blockades in 2 AOR's (Caribbean and N. Arabian Sea)
"It's what we've done that makes us what we are". Jim Croce....Applies to military operations and the logistics required to support current and future operations. All who read this Substack know that. When you have fond memories of what you used to be (UK, France) you can "feel" you are respected when you are neither respected nor capable. The object lesson is before us (see UK, France), and there lies our future if we don't see the lesson for what it is. Have to say there are those in the U.S. who feel that is not a bad thing, but a desired outcome. OBTW, imagine a Europe where two nuclear powers have Islamist governments. It appears to be closer than we realized...Kier Starmer feels that is where the UK future lies, if one can believe anything he says.
Let's not diss the French. As of 2025, the stockpile of the country's nuclear forces, the Force de dissuasion, is estimated at 290 deployed nuclear warheads. The Charles de Gaulle is an atomic-powered, flat deck, aircraft carrier with an operable catapult launch system. Incidentally, all of which are designed and built in France.
That was then, this is now...call it a reality check. Their government, now, that's an open-ended question that has been trending in a bad direction since I worked with them 20 years ago. When people cling to power against the national voting public in a "coalition required to create a government" nation state, you can find yourself with a command authority beholden to very strange bedfellows.
Pretty sure their cats are the short version of a C-13?
I doubt an Islamic UK could maintain Nukes much less any military equipment.
If you use them you do not have to maintain them.
There is that too.
That's a lot of ships at sea, and all four with a big flight deck.
Aviation platforms remain in demand the world over.
Just read that the French may have to provide escorts for the Brit's impending carrier deployment...
Wonder what the Shades of Nelson and Villanueve think about that!!
Probably spinning supersonically in their graves/tombs.
Can we wrap some wire around them? Power generation is becoming an issue.
Spin rate rivaling a neutron star :)
We'll see if French navy IAMD is any better than that of the Danish, German and UK navies against Houthi/other missiles? The Danes discovered that their vaunted Iver Huitfeldt's did not work as air defense ships, the Germans had a blue on blue engagement and the British discovered that failing to do a key software upgrade to their 4.5 inch guns made them unsuitable for antiair warfare.
Probably.... the French do have more overseas commitments where they have to chose violence as an option than the others.
CDR & Shipmates!
Shall we all sing the Marseilles or go to Rick’s to hear “Play it Again, Sam”…
You must remember this… a kiss is but a kiss… as time goes by..
China is on the move into Iran!
I passed several good news alerts to the far side of the Pond.
French Colonialism is rising!
Life or death… I’ll mount my horse or camel and ride…
Oh… seriously… this morning at 0738 I saw two (2)speeding watercraft loaded down with containers, heading North up the Chesapeake Bay. Only one person at the stern of each boat… going fast! I used my binoculars to assess. The sun had just risen about 0700!
My impression - Military USCG, perhaps. Spread the word to protect our Bridges… The Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Thank you! Nurse Jane
Until President De Gaulle and after, who could listen to Mireille Mathieu. singing La Marseille and not feel 'a tightening of the sinews, the roaring of the blood'?
Since DeGaulle (who Eisenhower should have shot in 1943, and saved a year of war) who cares?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MQ-SC9bmp4&pp=ygUPbGEgbWFyc2VpbGxhaXNl0gcJCa4KAYcqIYzv
That trilling warblefest of a song does not inspire. Neither does the French Navy Déploiement.
To each their own.
Personally, my enemies blood flooding the fields inspires me.
I agree with you about the French Navy, though
Is this the biggest hint that the French are banking on something big happening requiring an intervention, or at least choosing a side? That and of course Macron stopping off in Cyprus.
Perhaps play close attention to where the French warships announce as their destination (lift for possible evac ops of French citizens).
Not that the dearth of assets afflicts only the Brits and French...
Have to wonder what the CinC's reaction was when Gen. Caine told him we don't have the ships to escort tankers through the Hormuz.
And on a related note, the reaction of those who don't know how it works in this thread is a bit humorous.
https://x.com/Osint613/status/2030942595795296499?s=20
Should not be a surprise since we didn't have the ship to convoy through the Bab al-Mandab. We certain haven't commissioned two dozen figs in the past year.
Not sure Trump really grasped that.
"we don't have the ships to escort tankers through the Hormuz."
But gee whiz, isn't that one of the initial design requirements of the LCS, of which we have a bunch? Able to fight off swarms of small attack boats, etc.?
Old school axiom: Threat = Capability times intent. Reality: If your capability is very low, your intent is moot, and you are little or no threat. UK for sure, France is apparently trending towards the same area code.
Both are learning that not having an empire does not absolve you from being able to defend your self or your interests. Both thought the welfare state was more important. Scoop Jackson held that defense was the most important social program for very good reason.
The "interesting" is just getting started. 2026 is going to be very interesting.
2020
2020 won
2020 part II
2020 weeeee
2020 more
2020 alive
2020 fix?
OTOH, French future readiness rightly needs to take a backseat to Frances imperatives today, to safeguard, or evacuate, its interests in Lebanon.
Imagine the outcry if a Navy left ships in port 'just because.'
Just because, is always a reason. Keeping ships in reserve is a smart policy. One never knows.
It helps to have the depth to do so. I'd guess China is the only contemporary power that has the fleet in being to do so.
Macron is sending the French Navy to search for his manhood. They won't find it. Under Macron, France is irrelevant.
Britain, France, Germany, hell - all of NATO don't need a navy. They have the United States to rely on.