Royal Navy warships will be left without anti-ship missiles and be forced to rely on naval guns because of cost-cutting, the Ministry of Defence has admitted. The Navy’s Harpoon missiles will retire from the fleet’s frigates and destroyers in 2018 without a replacement, while there will also be a two year gap without helicopter-launched anti-shipping missiles.
Naval sources said the decision was “like Nelson deciding to get rid of his cannons and go back to muskets”.
No worse than the report yesterday that the Portsmouth Dockyard is aging badly, the electrical supply cables to the proposed berths for the new carriers are 80 years old. I know they built stuff to last in the old days but can anyone seriously say these are up to the job?
Also, perhaps a mod could move this to the off-topic section?
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Posts:7510 Joined: July 28th, 2010, 12:25 pm
Location: the netherlands
It might be worth considering, is ASTER anti-ship capable? I mean IIRC for the standard missiles a ship was just an really big slow low flying aircraft, so there was something alternative for the Harpoon.
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Posts:658 Joined: March 26th, 2013, 7:44 pm
Location: Nottingham. United Kingdom
This is likely to be a temporary measure until the Sylver capable "Anglo/French" "Perseus" is ready in 2020 give or take. But I can't see the Harpoon being got rid of just like that.
Posts:9102 Joined: December 15th, 2010, 10:13 pm
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I think the article writer have misunderstood the military a little. I belive what the Navy said is that they are not buying in New Harpoons to replace that they have used, they will use what they have stockpiled in stores at those various naval bases, and hopefully they are not empty before they get in a new missile type.