Is It Time To Close BRNC Dartmouth?
The Royal Navy is on the verge of closing the prestigious naval training college at Dartmouth and merging training with ratings at HMS Raleigh. This would surely mean the end of the RN as we know it and is clearly an outrage. That basically sums up a recent tabloid story , which seemed surprisingly well informed, that suggested that the RN is considering merging training as part of the ongoing Defence Review. Once you get past the initial blood pressure raising ‘OUTRAGE’ that some clearly wanted to feel, its worth looking further at the idea and perhaps asking the question “surely this makes complete sense”? The MOD is one of the largest landowners in the UK, owning huge swathes of land from remote moorland training estate where live firing can be practised, to the Cape Wrath naval gunnery range off Northern Scotland – where only last week F35 aircraft from HMS PRINCE OF WALES dropped live bombs on Garvie island. It has enormous barrack sites, housing thousands of soldiers and dozens...