Tim Streater scribbled...


In article , Adrian
wrote:

On Mon, 09 Jun 2014 11:58:29 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

It's more important for Britain to have a Navy - with carriers -
almost than anything else, defence-wise.

looks sceptical

Why you sceptical about that?

I'm no military expert, far from it, but it strikes me that the vast
majority of military action that this country's been involved in over the
last century or so has been primarily land-based, with naval and air
support. Which, to me, seems to suggest that the most important service
is the Army, with the Navy and RAF as essential backups.

Not followed the Battle of the Atlantic, then. We barely won that, and
it needed a lot of help from Ultra. As it was they sank 5000 merchant
ships in WW1 and 5000 ships in WW2. In WW2, we sank 1100 U-boats.


It didn't help that the Royal Navy codes had been broken by the Germans
and it took some time for the RN to work that out.


Also not followed the Pacific war either, I'd guess. That would have
been a non-starter for the Yanks without a Navy.

Without the Navy, Adolf could have invaded quite easily, and his
surface ships and subs would have strangled our imports. We'd have lost
in pretty short order.

As you may be aware, Jellicoe at Jutland was the only commander of any
sort of either side who could have lost the war in an afternoon.

Navy ships take quite a while to build, although the Yanks got the
business of building merchant ships during WW2 down to production line
rates. Fighters of the WW2 type are much quicker to build, and grunts
with rifles can be turned out by the bushel in quick time.


"It takes three years to build a ship, but 300 years to build a
tradition," Admiral Cunningham.