General Chat

The hard nosed French have sold a fleet of state of the art submarines to the Australians. The phone did not even ring in Barrow, Whitehall or Mr Williamson's office. The last may down to him playing with toy subs in the bath.

I can see doing brexit deals as being a little harder than Liam Fox believes.


:-\

Well if the deal fails as has been predicted the Japanese have said they will supply the subs.

It’s taken a few years to negotiate this and they are still stumbling around.

Hope they're better than the nuclear subs the Brits sold to Canada back around 2000 ....................


complete duds.

Wool. Eyes. Over. Pulled

always come to mind

Oz has twice rejected Japanese build on the reasonable grounds of lack of range and the much larger build of Australian sailors. Jap offer also fails tech transfer to Oz and cannot accommodate USA weapons systems. Oz is 0 also concerned at Chinese data and design theft from Japan.

The Australians are used to working with the French navy in the S Pacific and that is another factor.

Canada has never operated nuclear submarines though there are proposals to do so.
Canada bought 4 fairly new Upholder class diesel electric submarines from the RN. At any time two are in service. one is backup and one is in refit. They are not duds but it is fair to say that the RCN found the learning curve for such advanced weapons systems somewhat steep and one boat was nearly lost in the North Atlantic.

As some Australian ministers neither like nor trust the French company and they are also convinced they would be overpaying I’ll not hold my breath.

The tech was always going to be American no matter who got the design and build contracts.

Would you trust the French not to put a spanner in the works either through industrial action or change of financial demands? I wouldn’t.

The boat tech is all French Inc the pulse drive - no prop.
The weapons itself system is USA.
The French have an excellent record of close cooperation on weapons systems with the UK.
At this time Australian govt is at least as chaotic as Westminster.

Shipping contract awaiting sanction once a shipping company can confirm that they do possess appropriate plastic paddling boats, at least. :-S

Lol ??

Rollo I think the Canadian Government and armed forces would disagree with you somewhat!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/used-subs-a-daft-deal-for-canada-u-k-mp-says-1.1166047

Rollo posted ..........

"Canada has never operated nuclear submarines though there are proposals to do so.
Canada bought 4 fairly new Upholder class diesel electric submarines from the RN. At any time two are in service. one is backup and one is in refit. They are not duds but it is fair to say that the RCN found the learning curve for such advanced weapons systems somewhat steep and one boat was nearly lost in the North Atlantic."

Once again, he knows nothing, while I in Canada do know what happened!

OK, I grant him I said "nuclear" when they were not!! That was faulty memory

Canada paid $750 million (let's round it at around £500 million back then) in 1998 for 4 used Victoria-class subs. They had been decommissioned in 1993.

One caught fire as they sailed it across the Atlantic on its maiden voyage as a Canadian sub in 2004. The result ...... 1 sailor dead, several suffering smoke inhalation. Sub never in service

Yes, it took 6 years to get them fit to leave the Portsmouth dockyard

The other 3 have been at sea for a total of 3 years between them between 2004 and 2018. At least 2 have been sent to the scrapyard because they are useless and not seaworthy.

We've seen them in dry dock and tied up to the dock in Halifax Harbour every year since 2004, and even watched one being towed out of harbour as it was being sent to a scrapyard overseas.

One of them was found to have had the torpedo doors welded shut because of flooding problems even before it was mothballed in the UK

A BRITISH MP said in the House last year that he was ashamed that the UK had done ....... the actual quote by Mike Hancock, Lib Dem MO for Portsmouth South was

"I'm appalled we've done a dumb deal with an ally like this," Hancock said. "If this was the Americans, we'd say good luck and serves you right. But as it's Canada, I think there are a lot of questions to be answered."

He goes on to say that Canada should have done more "due deference", but thinks Canada has the right to ask the UK for our money back.

As you might imagine, his speech received a LOT of coverage here, although he ddi not actually say anything that the Canadian public hasn't known for many years.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/used-subs-a-daft-deal-for-canada-u-k-mp-says-1.1166047

I see that Caroline has provided the same link :-D

Mike Hancock is not MP for Portsmouth South, the seat is held by the Labour Party. In any case it is a very long time since submarines sailed from Gosport. All UK sub decommissioning is carried out at Devonport.

The subs were sold at a knock down price nowhere near cost "as seen". It is fairly obvious that the RCN was out of its depth and there was a lack of realism all round. IMHO used war ships may please finance ministers but are usually a disappointment.

Given the gross and serious impact of all subs on whales and the environment esp nukes I would prefer to see them banned. One of my rellies, Mr Glenn, lost his life in the 1939 sinking of Hms Thetis.

Getting back to my original post the Tory/ERG "Empire 2" has not got off to a very good start.

I stand corrected .................


Mike Hancock is NOT the MP for Portsmouth South

He was however the Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth South when he was quoted in that CBC interview in 2012..

Ahem..At the time, Hancock WAS the Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth.
True, he is 'not' now - but at the time he was - and I believe the newspaper report is 'of the time', not in the future....unless RTR knows 'special' reporters!

Michael Thomas Hancock, CBE is a British politician. He was most recently an independent Member of Parliament for Portsmouth South. Hancock formally resigned from the Liberal Democrat whip in early June 2014

sorry maggie ........

I should have added that he is not the MP for Portsmouth South NOW

But Sylvia, he was at the time being spoken about.

I mean, if we all wanted to totally nit-pick, we could ask what RTR's rellie has to do with the subject, bearing in mind many people on this site have relations who were killed/died in the war. Also, we are talking about a time way past WWII.

The 4 Upholder subs were never based in Mike Hancocks constituency. He was v much against the nuclear subs which replaced them. He made his mark in Portsmouth by employing an alleged (pretty) Russian spy as a researcher and failed to support Vosper's bid for frigate construction.. Armed forces seats anywhere tend not to support peaceniks so he was out. He had no special knowledge or role in the Upholder affair.

Meanwhile the Canada govt goes on wasting billions on defence esp ships without any help from the UK Mod.

Whether Australia gets a good deal from the French who knows. Probably not.
As the chances of Oz going head to head with China are nil why they want these subs I know not.

Canada of course has a problem withe the polar bears.

But if you bothered to read Sylvia's post - Hancock had something to say about the situation, so dis him all you like - he is relevant.
Also, pray tell, who DID have special knowledge or a role in the 'Upholder' affair?

My rellie senior RN commissioning officer. He wrote a corrosive report against Vosper's which included leaking torpedo tubes same as the Upholders. This fault caused HMS Thetis to sink. I have other rellies who serve/have served on nuke subs. I lived next door to one of them.

I hold a Yacht master certificate but have never served in The Andrew.

"we joined the navy ro see the world
What did we see?
We saw the sea"