Shipbuilding in the UK.

Thatcher happened. See also coalmining.

Looks like it could be a good bit of kit and the bringer of employment for a few years to come.

BigH47

Try growing up. Thatcher did not kill those industries, it was customers who went elsewhere. Maggie just cut out the subsidies.

Also do you really want men breathing coal dust and dying in their 50s after crawling around in tunnels. The demise of the coal industry was an act of humanity.

Regards

Mick

Funny how she is not responsible for anything after selling out the countries assests.

Are the electorate the ones you should be really chastising, as she did win a frw elections. Whether one voted for her or not, it is hard not to admit that she squared an awful lot up, and that the problems of British manufacturing where to do with a terminal decline that started at least in the sixties [if not very much earlier, historically speaking], due to a serious lack of investment, and serious over-manning at that time.

There were mistakes - big ones even, such as the Poll Tax - but overal, I find it hard not to think she was rather better than the current shower of disdsemblers we have ruling us, with little or no respect for public opinion in such big issues as the Gulf War etc.

I actually never voted for her, but I still admire her successes, which still out-number her mistakes.

Fredrik

Big47

Blame Thatcher? Funny coincidence then that virtually all G7 nations saw a decline in shipbuilding during the same era.

Jim

Whether you agreed with her politics or not she was a deeply dislikeable woman. As deep (or shallow) as a pit-top puddle and with the morals of a greengrocer's daughter. She ushered in the "greed works" era and offered nothing to those thrown out of work except class loathing and contempt.

quote:

Thatcher happened. See also coalmining.

BigH47

I,m old enough to remember the old coal mining days, used to work for my Father during the school holidays, mainly at various mines around South Wales installing pipework. Yes it was very sad when it all came to an end, and although Thatcher was instrumental in their demise, I don't think the outcome would have been much different. Their losses were unsustainable in the long term. The same happened, with what was British Steel and is now Corus.

BTW, not all the mines in South Wales are closed but this will not be the case for long. Tower Colliery which was privatised has announced it will be closing soon, not due to un-profitability mind, simply that they've actually run out of coal to mine, after 200 years.

quote:

Originally posted by Tarquin Maynard-Portly:
Bring back flying pickets and the closed shop.

No ta. Power corrupts...

The decline of the British shipbuilding industry mirrors the decline of the British shipping industry in general. This came to grief following the strikes by seamen and the decisions of shipowners to reflag and base their business elsewhere. And who was the twit behind the seamen's strikes? Our own deputy prime minister!

I believe that Britain's current shipbuilding vision does not stretch beyond building warships for the Grey Funnel Line. Its a great pity.

Shipbuilding is not needed if you do not have aspirations as a maritime nation. Maritime nations like Norway and Holland give encouragement to their maritime industries in many different ways with incentives for companies and individuals to invest. Mind you, maybe the biggest incentive to become a maritime nation is living on an island. A small crowded island that needs to import most of its raw materials from abroad, or overseas as we sometimes call it!

David

The world has moved on in the last few years, and from a Royal Naval perspective, the aggressor we were trained to defend against disappeared with the end of the cold war. The surface fleet has been decimated since, and a count of ships of frigate size and above currently numbers 30. When I joined up in 1977, there were 26 Leander Class frigates alone.

Whilst it is good to see the proud name of the Daring Class be revived with the Type 45 destroyers, the few ships on order will only keep shipbuilders occupied for a short while. The challenge is to provide the justification for a sizeable blue water fleet, and in all truth, an appropriate threat/aggressor does not exist to support this justification. Therefore scapped/sold ships are not replaced, and orders for new surface units are few and far between – and this is not good news for the likes of Vospers etc.

I neither approve nor disapprove of Thatcher; but to lay the blame for the state of the shipbuilding industry at her doorstep is rather missing the point.

We may be an island nation, but other nations build ships more cheaply and for that reason and no other, the demise of UK ship building has been a painful reality. The only reason some shipyards have continued to exist is that it would be a step too far to have our warships built abroad as well as our merchantmen.

At least Thatcher had principles and followed them, unlike the current dictator.

We visited the Vickers factory at Portsmouth a while ago. They had the order for the front one-third of the ships. The middle and rear parts were made in Scotland. They stick the fronts on a huge barge and take then up the east coast, where thay are welded onto the rest.

We asked the chap there why this was. He said it enabled each shipyard to get really good at making their part. Seems to vaguely make sense. But what is most amazing is that the fronts and the middles fit so precisely - they are absolutely huge and are made with all the heating and other gubbins before being fixed together.

Nigel

quote:

Originally posted by Yeldarb:
The world has moved on in the last few years, and from a Royal Naval perspective, the aggressor we were trained to defend against disappeared with the end of the cold war.

Seems to say it all, so what does the navy need?

Something along the lines of Littoral Combat Ships that can be deployed across oceans to deal with "asymmetric" threats and the UK & France CVF Carrier Development to cover everything else.

Do we still have the yards to do some of this in the UK?

I think we saw what a tin-pot dictator's conscript "navy" could do to real British warships. Thank god they weren't serious or Thatcher The Butcher might have had to call it a "war"!

quote:

I think we saw what a tin-pot dictator's conscript "navy" could do to real British warships. Thank god they weren't serious or Thatcher The Butcher might have had to call it a "war"!

Nime,

Were you there?

No. My attempts to join the RAF were thwarted by the flattest feet on this very flat earth. Which might at first sight have made me very suitable material. But in retrospect it was a wise decision not to accept me. Chaos is my middle name and discipline quite unknown to me. I could never keep a straight face on parade in the ATC as a schoolboy and matured but slowly beyond that. I can see humour in almost everything. Except war.

Great leaders should be remembered by their attempts to improve the lot of their populations and the human race in general. Not for their inability to convince others of their conventional defensive capability.

My guess would be that the next really big conflict will be over energy. Yet we have energy enough pouring down on our atmosphere to change the world. Only self-seeking, corrupt politicians still stand in our way to a sustainable, balanced lifestyle for the entire world's population. So instead, our world will probably be devastated, for the personal greed of a few.

A few fishermen and conscripts taking over a worthless, forgotten, historical accident at the wrong end of the world? You call that an invasion?

She should have discussed the matter with the bankrupt generals. Diplomacy before retaliation. All they wanted was a distraction. Thatcher gave them one with bells on! Ships bells in this case.

Judging from the media coverage the whole thing looked like two impoverished banana republics slugging it out in a badly made film farce. Meanwhile disposable extras were dying bravely and being permenently maimed for "Sovereign Territory" and The Flag?

I hope the country was suitably grateful? Did anybody learn anything? Are "we" still putting our faith in latter-day Hoods at the mercy of a single handheld weapon? Are "we" still carrying pre-Bergen rucksacks stuffed with WW1 canvas and kapok sleeping bags?

Nime,

I was there on one of our ships. I saw what really happened. May I tactfully suggest that you wind your neck in on this one?

You are completely unaware of the tactical situation at the time and have no comprehension of the events.

We all have our rights to our views, but let's get our views in perspective first before we run the risk of causing offence.

B

quote:

Originally posted by Nime:
A few fishermen and conscripts taking over a worthless, forgotten, historical accident at the wrong end of the world? You call that an invasion?

This posting demonstrates a very shallow understanding of world and military affairs, and in particular the difficulty in force projection over such distances. The Argentinian government thought it was safe to invade the Falklands because they thought it would be impossible for a fairly small military to respond effectively over such a distance - and they were very nearly correct.

The British government showed a lot of restraint in that conflict (too much in my opinion), something else that the Argentinians were counting on. I served in Sandy Woodwards command a few years later and I know for a fact he wanted to sink any Argentinian forces at sea, in their harbours or at their air-bases as doing so would have saved a lot of British lives.

Interersting factoid - The Argentinian Navy had received training at the hands of the UK Navy - however to a lower level than the training given to the UK Navy.

Another sad fact was that Officers in the UK navy knew and had worked with Officers on the Belgrano

It has been said that "The best man for the job is often a woman" and in 1982 I think that was true, although I did not vote for her but I think she was exactly what the country needed at the time.

Mike,


HMS Antrim

quote:

Originally posted by Yeldarb:
HMS Antrim

Handsome ship - don't ever recall actually being on a County Class myself though.

Mike,

That's a deal.

Brad