Saturday 7 January 2012

Gunboat Diplomacy 21st Century Style

"Left Hand Down A Bit!"

I bet the Ayattollahs and Mad Mullahs are quaking in their fucking sandals.

The Royal Gravy have announced the despatch of their "mightiest" ship, a class 45 Destroyer to the Gulf to replace a class 23 Frigate.

The Mighty HMS Daring's main and only popgun is the tired old 4.45 inch Mark 8 that was so crap in the Falklands conflict it needed modification to make it as reliable as the WW2-era Mark V it replaced. This is bound to terrify the Iranians, as they know all about it as one of the very first Mark 8's was sold to them on a frigate in 1971. Such cutting edge technology is sure to shock and awe...

Backing up this mighty weapon are no less (and no more!) than 48 missiles. What the fuck do they use once they've been used? Oh, right, they have a helicopter...and a few machine guns.

I'm sure this will also impress the Americans, whose 5th Fleet includes a fully functional Nimitz class aircraft carrier, the nuclear powered USS John C Stennis, complete with a full complement of aircraft (nine fucking squadrons of them!) - and they are not so daft as to let on how many missiles and stuff they are packing.

What's that buzzing noise?

Probably Nelson turning in his grave....

The Penguin

10 comments:

Captain Haddock said...

Indeed .. the Blair, Brown & Cameron creatures should be publicly hung for their treachery ..

Hacked Off said...

Sadly it started well before those twats...I remeber when we used to have world leading aircraft manufacturers knocking out superb fighters and bombers which would sell allover the world. Now we make wings...

Same with ship building...

Oldrightie said...

It's all about the EU forces. Aka NATO that was. Bet you this tin pot vessel is flying an EU flag. Unless even the EU would be embarrassed.

Master Bates said...

The billion pounds HMS Daring has the new stealth technology so hopefully no one will see it.
Lord Nelson hasn't slept peacefully since the OWS camp was set up outside.

microdave said...

"Whose 5th Fleet includes a fully functional Nimitz class aircraft carrier"

Do the Iranians have a lighthouse?

Mark The Skint Sailor said...

Don't get me started on how clueless about defence and security we are...

All I'll say is one MP even mooted that we should get our new QE Class Carriers made abroad.. to hell with the security implications, just lets look at the bottom line of cost.

As it is there's apparently a complement of Chinese workers working on the carriers anyway, who I'm sure will be full debriefed once they return home after sending intimate details of the vessel's structure back home.

microdave said...

The Chinese, in the form of Huawei, supply lots of telecoms equipment to UK companies, so they don't even need to work here to pose a threat.

Captain Haddock said...

I'm sure that had communist China really wanted to know the ins & outs of the UK fleet .. it wouldn't have been too difficult for them to have inserted agents within the myriad of Hong Kong Chinese "Dhobi-wallahs", "Sew-sew's" , Tailors or Cobblers who were employed on most British Warships ..

John Pickworth said...

While I'm embarrassed at our Navy - who can forget Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee Fleet Review being cancelled because there wasn't anything left of the Navy to review - we are several orders of magnitude better than the Iranian competition.

At least we don't have to inflate our ships with a foot pump each morning.

acenylag said...

"Now we only make wings..."

Judging by recent reports of cracks in the new 380s, we can't even do that properly now either.


I now use the word ver as ID - easier than thinking up new names.