General Chat

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..

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 see that Caroline has provided the same link :-D

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

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

Lol ??

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.


:-\