Date: 2024-08-16 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00026281
BRITISH NAVY
REALLY QUITE GOOD
Navy TV: The UK's £7 Billion Laughing Stock
REALLY QUITE GOOD
Navy TV: The UK's £7 Billion Laughing Stock
Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spkvYkj_D3Y
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
This video highlights a big problem with the modern media and communications landscape.
The headline may grab attention ... but if you only look at the headline, rhen a very wrong message gets conveyed.
The body of the video is good ... maybe it ranks as very good ... but I certainly don't get that from the heading!
What is wrong? From the body of the video ... the Royal Navy is doing pretty well!
I may not be totally objective. I grew up in the UK not many miles from the Royal Navy's Devenport base. When I was a child I was taken to 'Navy Days' when Devenport was open to visitors and one could see a lot of the hardware that the modern military was using.
I remember getting to visit HMS Vanguard ... the last of the British battleships launched just after the end of WWII.
I also remember getting to visit a variety of submarines ... and experiencing the feeling of claustrophobia in their cramped quarters.
When I was very young, my hope was to join the Royal Navy, but that never happened. The nearest I got to Dartmouth College, the training facility for the Royal Navy was to play cricket and rugby against the Dartmouth cadets when I was at Blundell's ... a boarding school school with its own old traditions.
I was never drafted into any military service. In the UK the 'draft' ended for my age group literally 8 days before I was eligible. In some ways good news, but it meant that I never got the valuable experience of being in a military setting ... and I went through University in a cohort that was two years younger than had been the norm for at least two decades!
My ongoing interest in the British military is driven by a deep respect for those who actually do serve. I am not by any means a military expert, but I have a deep respect for the amazing competence of those that serve in the British forces. Training in the British military is serious ... and way better than in most corporate settings.
Obviously the British military is tiny compared to the old days of 'Empire' but it is still a fighting force to be reckoned with ... and a partner that can do its part ... and more ... in most active situations.
Many military pundits anticipated that the Falklands engagement in the 1980s would be a disaster for the British, but in fact it became a disaster for Argentina. The British forces did the fighting that needed to be done, but did it in quiet collaboration with some significant logistical support from the USA. At the onset of the Falklands War, the idea that the Royal Navy would prevail in a confrontation some 7,000 miles from their home base was not credible ... but that is what happened. It pays to have important friends! Thank you Ronald Reagan!
Fast forward to 2024 and it is interesting to have the UK and the USA jointly engaged against the Houthis around the entrance to the Red Sea!
Peter Burgess
Navy TV
Feb 20, 2024
1.87K subscribers ... 4,426 views ...110 likes
You might've heard about the UK's aircraft carrier disaster recently. They've been criticised a lot in the media. Obsolete, ineffective and they break down more often than that cheap printer you regret buying...
But in today's video we wanted to dig a little deeper into these claims and find out what's really going on with Britain's aircraft carriers.
Transcript hidden