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The government is planning further big cuts to the Royal Navy after deciding that terrorism is the only serious threat to Britain. Annual accounts from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) show that it is to cut funding for new ships and equipment by more than 20%, from about £1.8 billion a year to a maximum of £1.4 billion. The cuts come as the MoD tries to fill a £2 billion shortfall in its budget over the next three years. Overspending has left funding even for this year uncertain. They will force the navy to shrink its commitments around the globe,...

Eighteen sailors on a Royal Navy warship have tested positive for cocaine, the MoD has said. They were caught during routine testing onboard HMS Liverpool, deployed in the South Atlantic. The ship has been involved in combating drug smuggling. "Internal action" is being taken against the sailors in what is believed to be the biggest drug bust in the Navy's history. It comes after five soldiers were dismissed after failing a drugs test.

Kuwait has activated its Emergency War Plan after an armada of US naval battle groups headed for the Persian Gulf, Middle East Times reports. The report comes after DEBKAfiles claimed on Monday that the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the USS Ronald Reagan, and the USS Iwo Jima are sailing toward the Persian Gulf to reinforce the US strike forces in the region. The US naval force is accompanied by a British Royal Navy carrier battle group and a French nuclear hunter-killer submarine. The deployment is believed to be the largest naval task force assembled by the United States and its allies...

Aircraft carriers: plane sailing Britain is paying a high price, but not too high If diplomacy is the continuation of war by other means, and if the art of diplomacy is to speak softly and carry a big stick, then no stick comes much bigger, or looks more intimidating, than a 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier. Except maybe two 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers. The tricky part of the equation is that big sticks do not come cheap. The Government has signed a contract for two 65,000-tonne supercarriers for the Royal Navy. As big sticks go, these are the second-biggest of their kind. Only...

A deal to build Britain's biggest ever aircraft carriers is expected to be sealed today. The Ministry of Defence is poised to sign contracts worth around £3 billion for two 65,000-ton ships. The Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales will be built at Govan in Glasgow and Rosyth in Fife, as well as Portsmouth and Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. Measuring more than 300 yards in length, the ships will have a flight deck the size of three football pitches and space for 40 aeroplanes. They will be similar in size to the QE2 and are more than three times the...

Two Royal Navy destroyers could not fire their missiles if they came under attack - because they have been removed to save cash. Type 42s HMS Exeter and HMS Southampton have been working without their Sea Dart guided missile system since Christmas, it was revealed today. To go with the cutbacks, at least half a dozen operating crew have been transferred to other ships. The missiles, used to protect the destroyers and larger aircraft carriers against air attack, have been stored away even though HMS Exeter has sailed to the Mediterranean twice and joined a NATO-led operation in that time....

Two hundred years after the battle of Trafalgar, the navy could end up sharing the pride of its fleet with the French. Driven by spiralling budgets, the two navies began talks last week aimed at sharing their aircraft carriers. The government is expected to give the go-ahead for the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers this week, part of a joint Anglo-French project to build a total of three. The French, who currently have only one carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, are questioning whether they can afford a replacement and are keen to explore closer co-operation with Britain instead. “We...

Oil tankers and other merchant vessels will be assembled into convoys to sail under the protection of warships’ guns. The plans follow two serious confrontations between Iranian gunboats and British and US naval ships. Four of our frigates and destroyers are to be sent to the key Strait of Hormuz amid fears that commercial shipping will be targeted next. The narrow “chokepoint” carrying oil from the Persian Gulf is the most vulnerable area for attacks or suicide rammings. Three US ships almost opened fire there in January after being “buzzed” by Iranian boats. Advertisement The convoy plans have emerged from...

ARABIAN GULF — The Royal Navy has taken command of the Coalition Maritime Forces protecting Iraq's vital oil platforms in the Northern Arabian Gulf. Commodore Duncan Potts RN has taken over command of Combined Task Force 158 (CTF158) from Commodore Allan du Toit of the Royal Australian Navy. Command of the Task Force is rotated between the UK, US and Australia. The UK last held command of CTF158 in July 2007 and will command the Task Force until August. Combined Task Force 158's primary mission in the Northern Arabian Gulf is maintaining security in and around both the Al Basrah...

How Does Tom Allen Keep His Promise to US Vets If....? Would Tom Allen Recognize a U.S. Vet if He Saw One? Tom Allen’s campaign for U.S. Senator website is promoting a feature called, “Keeping Our Promise To American’s Veterans,” with a series of photos. But how does Tom Allen keep his promise to American Veterans if he doesn’t know what one looks like? The picture below from Allen's website is a stock photo of a Royal Navy sailor. A U.S. Navy sailor would not be wearing a beard. The weapon in the picture is a British weapon. This isn’t...

January 27, 2008 Margaret Thatcher told navy to raid Swedish coast Pelle Neroth MARGARET THATCHER ordered the Royal Navy to land Special Boat Service (SBS) frogmen on the coast of Sweden from British submarines pretending to be Soviet vessels, a new book has claimed. The deception involved numerous incursions by British forces into Swedish territorial waters in the 1980s and early 1990s, designed to heighten the impression around the world of the Soviet Union as an aggressive superpower. Sometimes the boats landed commandos, but often their job was to fool the Swedes by mimicking the sonar signals given off by...

Faulty Fridge Causes Aircraft Carrier To Turn Back Jan 23 2008 Press Association A FAULTY meat fridge is forcing a Royal Navy aircraft carrier to return to base today just two days after setting off for the Indian Ocean. HMS Illustrious departed from Portsmouth Naval Base on Monday to head the multi-national Task Group Orion 08 which will be carrying out exercises and diplomatic visits during the next four months in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean. Navy spokesman Anton Hanney said a refrigeration unit used to store meat on the warship had been found to be in danger of breaking...

Dive bombers They can wipe out entire nations, and the British government plans to build even more. Are our Trident nuclear submarines essential for peacekeeping, or are they just expensive relics of the cold war? Michael Bilton meets the men with their fingers on the trigger. Photographs by Simon Norfolk Gordon Brown had been prime minister for only a few days when he learnt what it is to be the only person who can order the launch of Britain’s nuclear weapons. He sat down to write a personal letter to the commanders of the Royal Navy’s four Trident missile-carrying submarines....

December 9, 2007 Cash shortage to keep navy in port Michael Smith MOST of the Royal Navy will be tied up in dock next year, frozen by a £15 billion “black hole” in the Ministry of Defence budget over the next decade, writes Michael Smith. As the MoD fights proposals for £12 billion of defence cuts over the same period, only ships supporting operations in the Gulf will leave port. The soaring cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the increasing reluctance of the Treasury to fund them is adding to the pressure. “The navy is looking at what...

Treasury seeks £15 billion cut in defence By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor Last Updated: 2:19am GMT 05/12/2007 The defence budget could be cut by up to £15 billion over the next decade under Treasury plans which are said to have split the Cabinet. Although Gordon Brown recently announced a £2.8 billion rise in defence spending by 2010, Government pledges to replace the Trident nuclear deterrent and build two new aircraft carriers mean that cuts must be made elsewhere. An order for 3,000 new armoured vehicles may now be postponed, it was reported yesterday, and the Navy is set to...

The Royal Navy can no longer fight a major war because of years of under­funding and cutbacks, a leaked Whitehall report has revealed. With an "under-resourced" fleet composed of "ageing and operationally defective ships", the Navy would struggle even to repeat its role in the Iraq war and is now "far more vulnerable to unexpected shocks", the top-level Ministry of Defence document says. The report was ordered by Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, who had intended to use it to "counter criticism" on the state of the Navy in the media and from opposition parties. Royal Navy ships arriving for...

Navy to patrol Gulf in the spring By David Blair in Manama Last Updated: 2:49am GMT 02/11/2007 A Royal Navy aircraft carrier will be deployed in the Gulf next spring, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. HMS Illustrious will sail for the highly sensitive waters near Iran Illustrious will sail for the highly sensitive waters near Iran accompanied by Edinburgh, a Type 42 destroyer whose main role is providing air defence, and Westminster, a Type 23 frigate. Two minesweepers and three support vessels from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary will complete the deployment for Operation Orion 08. The ships will spend...

  Officers' tribute to hero cat   Simon ... 'able seaman'  ROYAL Navy officers who survived a siege that killed 17 of their comrades nearly 60 years ago will pay tribute to the cat credited with saving their lives. Simon the cat received the “animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross” for gallantry after he protected food stores on the HMS Amethyst from an infestation of rats, despite being badly injured in shelling by Chinese Communist forces during the country’s civil war. One of the survivors, Commander Stuart Hett, who was appointed “Cat Officer” with the duty of sorting hundreds...

October 7, 2007 RAF cuts to axe quarter of key bombers Michael Smith The RAF is to lose a quarter of its frontline bomber force and two bases in new cuts to be pushed through by the Treasury, according to senior defence sources. Two squadrons of Tornado GR4 ground attack aircraft will be scrapped, cutting the RAF’s frontline squadrons from eight to six. One helicopter base and one training base will also be closed, with the land sold off to raise cash. The move comes as the Royal Navy is braced for big cuts to its surface fleet with all...

In a new outburst of antiwestern sabre-rattling, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has threatened Britain with “revenge” for the Falklands war of 1982. The belligerent Latin American leftist warned last week that his recent build-up of sophisticated Russian and Iranian weapons would be used to destroy the British fleet if it attempted to return to the South Atlantic. Speaking on his weekly television show Alo Presidente (Hello, Mr President), Chavez denounced what he described as Britain’s “illegal occupation” of the Falklands and repeated his call for a regional military alliance against Britain and the United States. “If we had been...

FARNBOROUGH (Reuters) - They call themselves "sub hunters," men and women trained to detect enemy submarines gliding in the depths of the world's oceans. Like Cold War spies, they use a mix of state-of-the-art technology, rigorous training and split-second intuition to find out where the hidden subs are, where they may be headed and how fast they are going. The Cold War may be long over, but the demand for the trade is as strong as ever. With 540 submarines in operation around the world, many in the hands of what the British military refers to as "potential enemies," training...

Single cabins and private showers for women on Navy's new warship By PETER ALMOND Last updated at 15:41pm on 19th August 2007 The Royal Navy has spent £1billion on its first "unisex" warship to cater for the rising number of female sailors. Until now, women have found it difficult to serve on naval vessels because of communal washrooms and mess decks with 16 bunks or more. But HMS Daring, one of six new advanced Type 45 stealth destroyers being built, has individual, lockable bathrooms where men or women can shower in private and a greater number of single cabins. Navy...

The Royal Navy’s newest destroyer, the 7,500 tonne Daring, has successfully completed demanding sea trials off the Scottish coast. Daring is the first of six Type 45 Destroyers which will be the largest and most powerful air defence ships ever built for the front line. Carrying world-leading missile defence systems, they will be able to engage a large number of targets simultaneously and defend aircraft carriers or groups of ships, such as an amphibious landing force, against the strongest future threats from the air.

Cruise control: successful launch sees UK ready for Tomahawk Block IV missile 09 August 2007 By Richard Scott At precisely 0913 h local time on 21 June 2007, a submarine-launched Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile slammed into a simulated target site at the Eglin Air Force Base (AFB) land test range, Florida, concluding a 650 n mile test flight begun in the Gulf of Mexico 75 minutes earlier. Discharged from one of the five torpedo tubes in the bow of HMS Trenchant, a UK Royal Navy (RN) Trafalgar-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN), the missile had broached, transitioned to cruise flight,...

Nimitz-class aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), bottom, USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), top, transit in formation with the Royal Navy's Invincible-class aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious (R 06) in the Atlantic Ocean. The carriers are currently participating in Operation Bold Step, bringing together more than 15,000 service members from three countries during a Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFX).

It sounds kind of canned, but there truly is a hero in all of us. We all were designed by God to be a blessing to others – a champion to someone. Don't ever minimize yours or others' position or potential. Everyone has a place on the planet. Contributing to the culture of courage is all of our duty. As my mother has always told me, I also pass on to you: God has a plan for your life. The question is: Will we recognize our potential and offer up the power of our one unique life? I am genuinely...

Orders for two new Royal Navy aircraft carriers have been confirmed by Defence Secretary Des Browne. He said the £3.8bn contract would lead to the construction of the largest vessels ever sailed by the Royal Navy. The new 65,000-tonne carriers - HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales - will enter service in 2014 and 2016. Mr Browne said the work would support and create 10,000 jobs across the UK, including those at yards on the Clyde, Rosyth, Portsmouth and Barrow.

Defence Secretary Des Browne has confirmed orders for two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. He said the £3.8bn contract would lead to the construction of the largest vessels ever sailed by the Royal Navy. The new 65,000-tonne carriers - HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales - will enter service in 2014 and 2016. Mr Browne said the work would support and create 10,000 jobs across the UK, including those at yards on the Clyde, Rosyth, Portsmouth and Barrow....

Scots shipyards to share in £3.9bn super-vessels contract BRIAN BRADY WESTMINSTER EDITOR (bdbrady@scotlandonsunday.com) GORDON Brown is preparing to deliver a multi-billion-pound boost to his home nation, with confirmation that Scotland's shipbuilders will help to produce the biggest vessels ever ordered by the Royal Navy. Scotland on Sunday can reveal that the Prime Minister is set to put an end to years of delay by announcing the decision on the construction of the two "super carriers" within the next few days. In total, the contracts for both ships are worth £3.9bn. Scottish shipyards will be awarded up to half of the...

A Bell Boeing MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor transport from the US Marine Corps' VMX-22 test squadron has made history by performing the type's first landing aboard a non-US vessel, touching down on the UK Royal Navy's strike carrier HMS Illustrious on 10 July.

The Americans Are Coming! MV-22 Osprey Makes First Landing On British Carrier Wed, 11 Jul '07 Marines, UK Forces Prepare For Joint Exercise Off Eastern US Ahead of a US-led Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFX) on the Eastern seaboard of the United States, the HMS Illustrious welcomed the very first embarkation of a US Marine Corps Bell/Boeing MV-22 Osprey onto the Royal Navy aircraft carrier Wednesday. It is the first time an Osprey has landed on a non-US vessel. Portions Copyright © 1999-2007 by Aero-News Network, Inc. All rights reserved. Representatives with the UK's Ministry of Defense tell ANN the...

HMS Illustrious has become the first Royal Navy ship to embark a US Marine Corps Bell/Boeing MV-22 Osprey aircraft onto its deck during a joint exercise in the United States. The landing, which comes ahead of a US-led Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFX) on the Eastern seaboard of the United States, was the first time that an Osprey has embarked in a non-US vessel anywhere in the world. The MV-22 Osprey, the world's first tilt-rotor aircraft, has a unique vertical take-off and landing capability. It is ideally suited to working from the deck of HMS Illustrious, which is currently the...

This is what the intelligence official recounted: The abduction of the sailors was an operation that was animated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The political fortunes of both have been falling this past year. Ahmadinejad lost key elections in December that not only marked his decline but marked the rise, to some degree, of political forces allied with former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani. The abduction was designed to secure domestic political leverage for Ahmadinejad and the al Quds forces, whose budgets have been stagnant despite the rise of national income from increasing oil prices....

A new hi-tech long-range land attack missile has been successfully fired by a Devonport-based submarine. The new 'smart' Block IV Tomahawk missile was fired during a live firing trial off the US coast. The 5,200 tonne attack submarine HMS Trenchant used one of her torpedo tubes to launch the missile, which then flew over the Gulf of Mexico, striking a target hundreds of miles away with pin-point accuracy. During the 60-minute test fight the missile reached heights of 10,000 feet and speeds of 500 miles an hour. The enhanced weapon will improve the long-range precision capability of the Royal Navy...

The Americans will be taking to the high seas off the Yorkshire coast this summer in search of their nautical "Holy Grail". Martin Hickes reports on an expensive obsession. THIS August, a flotilla of American scientists will mount a £175,000 expedition off Flamborough Head in search of a wreck, more than 200 years after it sank. Two US teams will plunge into the North Sea in search of the flagship of a Scottish captain, known to the Brits as little more than a pirate, but to the Americans as a hero of the American Revolution and the "Father of the...

<p>It was a stand-off on the high seas like that which led to the arrest of 15 British sailors and marines by the Iranians earlier this year.</p> <p>But this time the potential captives were Australians and they were a little less meek in their response.</p>

The first of the UK's new generation of nuclear-powered attack submarines has been unveiled in Cumbria by the Duchess of Cornwall. Due to enter service in 2009, BAE Systems' Astute is the most advanced submarine of its kind and comes bristling with the very latest in military technology. BAE said: "With a radar signature equivalent to a dolphin, it can remain undetected thousands of miles from home and hundreds of metres underwater. "In the right conditions it can detect the QE2 leaving New York harbour from the English Channel." its key asset is its stealth. Even with a nuclear reactor...

REFLECTIONS BY THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF The press dispatches bring the news; it belongs to the Astute Class, the first of its kind to be constructed in Great Britain in more than two decades. "A nuclear reactor will allow it to navigate without refuelling during its 25 year of service. Since it makes its own oxigen and drinking water, it can circumnavigate the globe without needing to surface," was the statement to the BBC by Nigel Ward, head of the shipyards. "It’s a mean looking beast", says another. "Looming above us is a construction shed 12 storeys high. Within it...

French Fireships Attacking the English Fleet off Quebec, 28 June 1759 Cavalry embarking at Blackwall,24 April 1793 Shipping in a Gale, circe 1656 Building the 'Great Leviathan' (the 'Great Eastern')Date 1858 The Destruction of 'L'Orient' at the Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798 An English Ship in a Gale Trying to Claw off a Lee Shore, 1672 Moonlight View over Table Bay Showing Halley's Comet, c. 1842

Navy's stealth submarine will rule the oceans By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent Last Updated: 2:06am BST 10/05/2007 A new £1.2 billion Royal Navy submarine which from the Channel is able to detect the QE2 cruise liner leaving New York harbour was unveiled yesterday. The Astute, the first attack submarine to be built in almost two decades, is the "most stealthy in the world" and will put the Navy at the "top of the premiership", commanders said. At a time when morale is suffering, the launch next month of the Navy's biggest ever hunter-killer submarine will also give hope that Service...

   EXCLUSIVE    Tour navy's £1.2bn super sub  Sneaky peek ... inside the super sub 1. Shrouded Propulsor 2. Upper Rudder Segment 3. Lower Rudder Segment 4. Starboard Hydroplane 5. Aft Anchor Light 6. Rudder and Hydroplane Hydraulic Actuators 7. No.4 Main Ballast Tank 8. Propeller Shaft 9. High Pressure Bottles 10. No.3 Main Ballast Tank 11. Towed Array Cable Drum and Winch 12. Main Ballast Vent System 13. Aft Pressure Dome 14. Air TReatment Units 15. Naval Stores 16. Propeller Shaft Thrust Block and Bearing 17. Circulating Water Transfer Pipes 18. Lubricating Oil Tank 19. Starboard Condenser 20....

Chief Petty Officer Gordon Selby, who has died aged 87, was one of the luckiest and most highly decorated ratings in the submarine service.In September 1940 he was appointed coxswain of the submarine Upholder, commanded by Lieutenant David Wanklyn, which was sent to join the “Fighting Tenth” flotilla.On arriving astern of the carrier Illustrious as she was being subjected to continuous divebombing at Malta, Selby spent the daylight hours in Upholder ‘s conning tower firing a Lewes gun. “I didn’t have a hope in hell of hitting a Stuka,” he recalled. “But the experience stirred up the adrenalin.”During 13 months...

Britain on its knees The British marine hostage saga is a debacle of the first order – a grim parable of the degraded state to which Britain has now descended and an alarming portent for the free world in its fight to survive. Relief at the safe return of the 15 sailors, and the fact that we must always bear in mind that none of us knows how we would ourselves behave in such circumstances, cannot nevertheless mitigate the sickening realisation that the hostage fiasco is another terrible milestone in the west’s current suicidal trajectory of decadence and moral collapse....

Britain on Monday banned all military service members from talking to the media in return for payment, a day after it said the 15 marines and sailors who were held captive in Iran could sell their stories. Defense Secretary Des Browne issued a statement saying the navy faced a "very tough call" over its initial decision to allow the payments. The new ban will not affect any of the 15 service members held captive in Iran who already given accounts, a Defense Ministry spokesman said. On Monday, in one of the first accounts, Faye Turney, the sole woman in the...

Iran's Bluff Humbles BritainApril 8, 2007 BY MARK STEYN Sun-Times Columnist Watching Tottenham Hotspur fans taking on the Spanish constabulary at a European soccer match the other night, I found myself idly speculating on what might have happened had those Iranian kidnappers made the mistake of seizing 15 hard-boiled football yobs who hadn't got the Blair memo about not escalating the situation. Instead, as we know, the mullahs were fortunate enough to take hostage 15 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines. Which were which was hard to say upon their release. The Queen's Navee had been demobbed. The token gal...

Yesterday the Navy breathed a huge sigh of relief. Today the inquiry into the affair will begin, with recriminations likely and many questions to be asked of commanders. Foremost among those to be questioned will be Commodore Nick Lambert, the flotilla commander ultimately in charge of the 15 sailors who were allowed to venture out of sight of his flagship Cornwall with very little support while just two miles from Iran's disputed territorial waters. While Cornwall had too deep a draught to provide line of sight cover for the boarding party, there were many other ships that could have given...

Lieutenant George Wookey, who has died aged 84, established a world record when, half a century ago, he went deeper than any helmeted diver in a flexible suit; later he brought up whisky from the ship sunk off the island of Benbecula which was the subject of the novel and the film Whisky Galore.On October 12 1956 Wookey was lowered 600 ft from a diving tender into a Norwegian fjord as part of a trial to discover the depth at which a diver could assist stranded submarine crews. While he went down with a heavy steel bench, representing the hull...

The media coverage of Iran's capture of the 15 British sailors has missed four key points. The first is the inexplicable failure of the Royal Navy to have proper plans and resources at hand to preclude, or frustrate exactly this type of scenario. To use unsupported boarding parties in a dangerous theatre of operations shows just how far the Royal Navy has fallen since the days of Nelson, Keyes and Vian. Second is the Royal Navy's apparent acceptance of the fact that a woman should receive more favourable treatment than her male crewmen. As one raised in the days of...

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah reportedly warned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he should not underestimate the US military threat on Iran. Ahmadinejad met with King Abdullah on March 4 in Riyadh, and publicly the two leaders agreed to fight growing Sunni-Shiite strife in the region. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told Newsweek in an interview that the king meanwhile warned Ahmadinejad to take seriously threats of US military strikes over Iran's refusal to halts its uranium enrichment program. "On the nuclear issue, we warned him: 'Dont play with fire. Don't think the threat (of an American attack on Iran) is...

It's time that historical perspective and precedent, as well as toe to toe squaring off against a tyrant are applied in the Persian Gulf IMHO. As Teddy Roosevelt showed us, and has been shown coutless times since, one must stand up to tyrants and make them fear for their lives when they begin their bullying and tyranical ways. So, Iran, the options are simple and the full might of the UK and her allies, principally the United States, should stand behind a direct statement like this... 72 Hours. Faye Turney and the other UK personnel alive...or Ahmadinejad dead!