According to the BBC news website both French and Canadian maritime patrol aircraft are aiding the UK in the search - as we no longer have any of our own!

What a complete mess DC and co have made of Britain's defences in the last 6 years.

No maritime patrol aircraft - Nimrods scrapped years before replacements - if any - will be available

Scrapped our last carrier and its aircraft (Harriers) years before the replacement carriers will be available and then with no aircraft for another 3 years.
(Aircraft carrier with no aircraft = big white elephant target.)

Well if sea borne aircraft are really needed we can always ask the French or Italians or Indians to help while we wait till 2025 for ours to be fully equipped and operational.

I think scrapping it would be a mistake, but Trident is not an effective deterrent in the modern era. It only works against those in possession of nuclear weapons (ie Nation States).

In the modern era its another 'Aircraft Carrier without Airplanes'.

Ironically of course Trident submarines would sit in the depths of the sea, near or off the Soviet coast much in the way Russian subs being hunted off Scotland would be.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

It would be a big mistake.

Edited by Hrolf The Ganger (23 Nov 2015 1.51pm)

Agreed, we need something more flexible than Trident, which is entirely unsuited to a non-cold war scenario.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Actually, no one knows where Trident boats go, except for a very small number of people within the RN & MOD.

As for a more flexible system, well if you are still talking nuclear there used to be something called WE177, which was the RAF's tactical nuclear weapon, but they too have been taken out of service. Today we would probaably have to buy-in the American B61 bomb.

It may, although that is very debateable, have been necessary to cancel Nimrod Mk4, but they went further and not only decommisioned the entire Mk2 fleet, but in a Healy-esque moment then had them physically destroyed! There used to be at least 3 squadrons plus an OCU (Operational Conversion Unit) split between St Mawgan and Kinloss. With the 9 new P-8s there will barely be enough to raise a single squadron of 6 plus 2 for an OCU (unless we do all our type training with the Americans) and 1 spare.

I suspect when you look at everything in detail this will have been proven to be another smoke and mirrors job. Nothing will come online for a minimum of 5 years. Even the two "new" brigades aren't due to be reconfigured until 2025 and they are supposed to be urgent!

If you want an idea of how poorly defended we now are, the French government was able to deploy approximately 115,000 police & miltary to Paris and its environs; whereas that is more than the entire British Army plus the Met Police put together even if no one was sick, injured or otherwise not available.

Edited by Dweeb (24 Nov 2015 9.56am)

Taking the bungy jump since 1964. Never to see John Jackson in a shirt again

Sorry to see Lee Hills go, did we ever see Alex Marrow? We did January 2013