Thin Pinstriped Line

HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH has returned to Portsmouth from her sea trials in the Atlantic, a voyage that saw her make the first of many visits to Gibraltar, and help continue the complicated process of making sure the ship is able to safely, efficiently and effectively operate aircraft. The purpose of trials is simple, to make sure that things work as intended and then if not, work out what to do to make them work properly. While it is understandable that many frustrated commentators want to see jets embarked yesterday, when you bring a ship into service for the first time, you have to be certain it all works properly. Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright These trials are particularly important in setting the parameters of how the ship works, understanding the limitations of aviation operations and in seeing how the vessel handles in varied weather conditions. The Save the Royal Navy website has a good account of some of the work done to date - LINK HERE To date...

Russian transits of the Channel are becoming like groundhog day. A small group of usually elderly ships, sometimes accompanied by a rescue tug steams up the channel on their way home. The Royal Navy sends out an appropriate vessel to politely steam in company with them and then carries on once they leave our area of interest. Sometimes this is a frigate, other times an OPV and occasionally an MCMV. Finally, social media and the press erupt in FURY as they decide that the UK has somehow been humiliated and its all someone else’s fault, and the usual crowd of rent-a-quote retired Admirals are wheeled out to say, ‘it wouldn’t have happened in my day’. The latest example is that of the transit of a small group comprising an oiler, a landing ship and an AGI (intelligence collector) which sailed through Channel waters last week. Given that these ships old, slow and posed a negligible military threat to these islands, the RN decided to send one of its hugely capable River class Offshore...

In the last week there have been several posts on social media by MP’s fortunate enough to have taken part in visits organised by the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme (AFPS), a charity which exists to increase exposure of MP’s to the Armed Forces. While it was common half a century ago for the majority of MP’s to have some experience in the armed forces, today this is far less likely to be the case. A smaller military, the loss of National Service and the reality that for many people a career in the Armed Forces is not particularly appealing, or that medically they cannot get in, means that less than 100 MP’s today have prior military experience. To increase the levels of understanding about the Armed Forces, the AFPS was established to try and give hands on experience to MP’s to visit the military, learn about the Services and develop an understanding of the issues facing the armed forces today. Founded in 1989, the Scheme is privately sponsored by industry, and takes app...

2018 is now well underway, and Christmas and the predictions of doom and gloom about the UK no longer having a navy anymore because ships weren’t at sea feels a remarkably long time ago. Last week saw a range of updates from across the Naval Service about the activities of its ships across the globe, and what they are up to right now. At Christmas the media was full of stories about how the UK was unable to send an escort overseas and that this was a disaster for the Royal Navy. The papers were full of negative commentary about the RN being in decline and how this reflected poorly on the UK. Yet 6 weeks later and already the RN has had ships operating in four of the five oceans of the World (Atlantic, India, Southern & Pacific) and it is very much a case of ‘business as usual’, which rather makes you wonder what all the fuss was about. Right now the Royal Navy & Royal Fleet Auxiliary have ships deployed in the West Indies, where RFA MOUNTS BAY continues to deliver vit...

HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH has put to sea for the next phase of her Sea Trials, a comprehensive process that takes her from being a magnificent but still civilian owned ship, to a fully worked up and operational commissioned warship. While the initial contractors trials were closely covered, due to subtle differences in policy (such as having to keep her AIS system on), these trials are being conducted in a bit more of a discrete manner. Despite this discretion, there is still a lot of positives we can take from the news that QEC is at sea. The first and perhaps most important point is that QEC is at sea, and not quietly sinking alongside in Portsmouth dockyard. Despite an element of near hysteria over Christmas, when some more excitable publications breathlessly pronounced that she was sinking ( LINK HERE) , the ship has, as predicted, put to sea without dry docking and carried on with her programme as intended. The lesson that can perhaps be drawn here is, when a bunch of marine exper...