British Military Pictures & Videos

Equation said:

I noticed it's all in the letter "A". Is this normal practice for the Royal Navy? I like Audacious, not sure about Artful.

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Yes, most though by no means all ship classes in the RN have a 'theme' which was often as simple as the first letter of the names, hence 'A' class (1970s Amazon class or type 21 Frigates), 'B' class (Broadsword class /type 22), 'C' class (type 22 batch 3), 'D' class (Daring class/ type 45 Destroyers), 'E' class (Echo class survey ships) and the new 'A' class (Astute class SSNs).

Previous sub classes also followed the same pattern, Swiftsure (S class) and Trafalgar (T class) SSNs as well as the SSBNs, Resolution (R) class and Vanguard (V) class. Current speculation is that the Type 26 Frigates will be 'F' class, but the RN also has a habit of going off at a tangent with class names such as 'Town' class (type 42), Tribal class (type 81), County class DLGs and the 'Duke' class (type 23). Even the Invincible class were in this pattern, as the 'I' class (Invincible, Illustrious and Indomitable, which became Ark Royal after she was laid down).

Obi Wan Russell said:

Yes, most though by no means all ship classes in the RN have a 'theme' which was often as simple as the first letter of the names, hence 'A' class (1970s Amazon class or type 21 Frigates), 'B' class (Broadsword class /type 22), 'C' class (type 22 batch 3), 'D' class (Daring class/ type 45 Destroyers), 'E' class (Echo class survey ships) and the new 'A' class (Astute class SSNs).

Previous sub classes also followed the same pattern, Swiftsure (S class) and Trafalgar (T class) SSNs as well as the SSBNs, Resolution (R) class and Vanguard (V) class. Current speculation is that the Type 26 Frigates will be 'F' class, but the RN also has a habit of going off at a tangent with class names such as 'Town' class (type 42), Tribal class (type 81), County class DLGs and the 'Duke' class (type 23). Even the Invincible class were in this pattern, as the 'I' class (Invincible, Illustrious and Indomitable, which became Ark Royal after she was laid down).

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I hope that those frigates get built in good numbers. What's the latest plans on the run?

Also, a little off topic, but I am sure that with the Iran Embassy crisis more than a few people were wishing the UK had a carrier available. Right now, when the question is raised "Where are the carriers?" the UK does not have a good answer until the QE is commissioned and receives her aircraft...I guess sometime in 2017 or so. Over five years...a long time to be without especially when there is the potential for so much mischief about.

So far I'm only hearing talk of a run of 8 Type 26 frigates for the RN, utterly inadequate to replace the 13 Type 23s, but I think it is a carry over from the now defunct S2C2 project, which envisaged 6-8 high end Frigates (C1), 6-8 medium Frigates (C2) and 8+ smaller multi role 'corvettes' to replace OPVs and MCMVs. The latter was to be a 2000 tonne type but the ships it was to replace will remain in service into the 2020s, so it was dropped. C1 and C2 were to have a common hull if possible and differing weapon and sensor fits. C2 was allowed to wither on the vine as it was seen as underarmed for such a major vessel, leaving C1 to evolve into T26. There will be a few more years of detailed design work before orders are placed, and in essence these ships will provide work for the shipyards currently working on CVF. Efforts continue to secure international involvement in the project to reduce costs, though it looks like the Canadians have opted out to go with a national frigate design.

As to the Iran embassy situation (having flashbacks to the early 80s here!), I'm sure the RAF and the Army Chiefs will be telling Cameron all sorts of nonsense about what they can do to remedy this if need be. Remember in april 82 the Army and RAF heads told Thatcher the Falklands couln't be retaken due to the distance involved, whereas AdM Leach simply said a Carrier Task Force could be sailed in 48 hours. You'd think the lesson to be learned by the 'Light Blue' and the 'Brown Jobs' was to pull their collective socks up, but apparently not.

The RN is a professional Navy with a long tradition. The USN is also highly professional. What we fear is with the Defence Cuts by both the UK & US, the capabilities of these two Navies would be seriously effected, much to the glee of some countries. We can only hope that the realities of potential future conflicts would sink into the heads of the respective governments. There's so much the RN & the USN could do with limited number of ships, subs etc.

RFA Wave Ruler returns to UK after 21-month deployment

bd popeye said:

RFA Wave Ruler returns to UK after 21-month deployment

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She's also well armed.

Click and make larger. Look outboard, under the bridge wings, forward of the life boats.



Also several 7.62 mm mounts around.

Like to see that. Many of our MSC vessels have little or no armament.

of courses Medium MG's are of little use against much more then a fishing boat of would be pirates.

Afghanistan

On that last pic that RTO (Radio and Telephone Operator) soldier, is he carrying some type of sub-machine gun?

No Equation That's the Same guy ( Dork! Who does the over used out of Date thumbs up any more???) as other photos. He's packing the Hk rebuilt L85A2 with Rail interface, Trijicon Acog and a L17A2 Grenade launcher ( HK AG-C/EGLM)