Pzkpfw-e Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/communities/wallsend/2012/09/10/tyneside-built-hms-ark-royal-will-be-sold-for-scrap-72703-31803560/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enigma Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 So soon we may drive a Japanese car made form the Ark... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Apparently going to Turkey. Though there is time to raid the piggy banks to put in a bid on Illustrious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferrettkitt Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Illustrious expected to be saved bet not if any carrier needed to be saved it really needed to be Ark Royal as we are unlikely to see another Royal Navy ship of this name again. If Ark Royal can not be saved what hope for Illustrious? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattie Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Three million seems cheap to me http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/1213/managing_the_defence_inventory.aspx Billions being wasted on storing equipment that will never be used . The MOD cant help itself been wasting out taxes for years. The money spent on storing useless equipment could have been spent on front line infantry regiments or maybe the Ark Royal. Never mind two new carriers being made but no aircraft to fly off them Rant nearly over, but why DID we get rid of the Harrier ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RattlesnakeBob Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 (edited) Aw I don't want to get into criticising the folks that have to do the job but this has been going on forever mate.......Near to where I worked in the late 1970s was RAF Quedgeley ....it had never been a flying base , it was built and used for 'storage' of kit for all the armed services and on occasion I had reason to be in there..I have honestly never seen so many different items stacked up by the thousands in one place.......... Just to give you an idea of what I saw in there over the years........ Bedside Lamps / Coffee tables / Bedside cabinets / Beds / Axle Stands / Bicycles / Wheelbarrows / Sack Trolleys / Filing Cabinets / Sofas / Armchairs / Wardrobes / Toilet Rolls (millions not thousands of them !)....the list was endless. By the late 1980s the MoD was closing the place and held a number of sales to which I went as my business by then included buying and selling surplus gear of all descriptions......... all of the above plus thousands of other items were cleared at auction for ridiculously cheap prices..At one of the sales I bought a job lot of workshop lights which were all date stamped 1948.....brand spanking new and never been issued nor used.........I bought 10 of them for £28.00 for the lot and then found I had also in the same lot inadvertantly bought about 500 angle poise bedside lamps as well......... Just why was the MoD paying for the storage of this kind of item???? any clues?????. ....and keep in mind that the MoD had a good few dozen places the same as this , RAF Quedgeley wasn't the only one not by along way..... and yes I agree.............3 million does sound very cheap for HMS Ark Royal Edited September 11, 2012 by RattlesnakeBob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Trouble is a fair amount of stuff is 'Lifed'. I was given a pile of componets, when I queired it I was told after three years the reliabilty was suspect, and would you trust the life of a man to a thrupenny component that might fail? The other problem is the bit might not fail but you keep a spare anyway, and it carries on till it is obsolete. Mind you I also got a big box of Wartime dated feild dressing that had ben stored for emergency use. :-D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RattlesnakeBob Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 yeah I see that point with something that might actually 'deteriorate' Tony but...... ........at one sale I bought a pallet of pick axe heads and handles....all of them wrapped in that greasy brown paper.....all absolutely immaculate.... I only bought one pallet because I wasn't that sure I could shift anymore but there were actually many more available.....I paid £12.00 plus VAT for my pallet and was offered any or all of the rest of the lots at the same price by the auctioneer but turned them down........ .......Now my point is this........a pick axe hasn't changed to my knowledge in the last 100 years.....these were of the same design as seen in WW1 photos.....the same as in WW2 photos ....and exactly the same as you might see boys using in Afghanistan right now...........so........why did the MoD keep buying so many ? It wasn't as though the handles were rotten or woodwormed...the heads were all shiny black and greasy so..no deterioration there either..........so why had they kept on buying obviously hundreds of thousands of pick axe sets that were never gonna be needed?....only to sell them off at a fraction of what they must have cost them in the first place?.....baffling to me mate :-| Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Same to me mate. And I worked for MOD! It is now the Defence Procurment Agency, note the little word 'Agency'. What that means , supposedly, is that the Agency has it's own budget, not taken from the Tresurary so has to work in a commercial manner. :banghead: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 Same to me mate. And I worked for MOD! It is now the Defence Procurment Agency, note the little word 'Agency'. What that means , supposedly, is that the Agency has it's own budget, not taken from the Tresurary so has to work in a commercial manner. :banghead: The DPA disappeared some time ago, it's now DE&S. And what was the Disposal Sales Agency (who sell all this stuff to Withams and the like) is now the Disposal Sales Authority as agencies are no longer in fashion .... Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlienFTM Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 It wasn't as though the handles were rotten or woodwormed...the heads were all shiny black and greasy so..no deterioration there either There were heads to go with the Self-Loading Pickhelves? I never knew that! We only ever used them to bimble around camp after hours looking like we were guarding the place (Until a colonel in Bielefeld was shot by the IRA in 1980 and we started to carry SMGs. A year or two after that they even gave us ammunition.) Solid as a rock the Self-Loading Pickhelve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RattlesnakeBob Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 There were heads to go with the Self-Loading Pickhelves? I never knew that! We only ever used them to bimble around camp after hours looking like we were guarding the place (Until a colonel in Bielefeld was shot by the IRA in 1980 and we started to carry SMGs. A year or two after that they even gave us ammunition.) Solid as a rock the Self-Loading Pickhelve. you can't beat a nice piece of hickory mate.......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
berna2vm Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 Selling the Ark Royal off is a disgrace. It is not 'lifed' and it should not have been decommissioned until the Queen Elizabeth class carriers were in service. I find it embarrassing to be British at the moment, can we not afford an aircraft carrier ??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike65 Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 Never mind two new carriers being made but no aircraft to fly off them Almost correct. The Royal Navy technically have some carrier aircraft they could use.(sort of) 2 Swordfish 1 Sea Fury 1 Sea Hawk Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattie Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 Why was Harrier withdrawn? The most versatile and proven combat aircraft we have ever had . We are still stuck with Tornado good at air displays not much else . Typhoon high altitude fighter over priced designed by a committee 20 years late . At least they binned the bottom less money bit the Nimrod. I think politically the RAF have more clout than the Navy . The RAF never forgave the Fleet Air Arm for there success in the Falklands. They keep banging on about the Vulcan raid that cost millions and lets be real they missed the target. Truth is we have nothing, although I do wonder how much a squadron of Swordfish would cost cant be too expensive.:cheesy::cheesy: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryH57 Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 Too much kit is cast - I suspect to give those in MOD Precurement a job! My mate who works for the MOD as a vehicle mechanic has cast hundreds of Land Rover Defenders etc because the chassis had rotted away. Strangely the MOD never specified a galvanised chassis on any of them and yet still paid a higher unit price than normal). Of recent, perfectly good Bedfords AWD and Fodens have all been cast as there is now a rush to equip units with MAN trucks. Don't believe that they are better as they are not! They have so much techno stuff in the cab I cannot ever see them doing a beach landing or lasting long in a sand storm. They must now be connected to a PC to fault find them and it won't be long before that in turn has to be a PC connected to a call centre. "Thank you, your call which is very important to us - how are you today?" "I'm being RPG'd by the Taliban, right now, the radios taken a direct hit and the truck won't start!" "Firstly caller may I have the number from the bar code found on the side of the chassis" ... Arrgh! Bring back the simple vehicles I say like the WW2 Jeeps my Dad recovered off the beaches in SW Pacific and worked on by tipping them on their side! My mate was even told to cast a complete four wheeled comms trailer as the plastic bottle on the brake master cylinder was broken. I won't mention the Austin K9 they towed away to the scrappy either in case it upsets anyone - the unit couldn't understand that anyone would ever want it. As for the spares any that are of no use go in the skip as was the case when Series LRs got cast. Everything got binned at the unit. When Wolf wheels were fitted to Defenders they chucked 250 Defender wheels and good tyres as 'they were no good to anyone'. (Strangely when a Wolf wheel is used on a Defender the wheel nuts don't screw fully on the stud but this is OK and has been passed by the MOD!) But now, I here the Wolf is on its way out so that the MOD can get those mini Hummer look alike thingies - you know the ones with a compartment for four squadies but no rear tub to carry anything. The strange thing though with MOD precurement is that lots of this kit being replaced is for the TA and yet numbers are right down as I think many blokes think they will be sent to to Afganistan if they join up. Remember in WW2 how all the old guns from the scrapped Dreadnought ships were brought out of their underground stores and re-used as coastal batteries? What will we have next time I wonder! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FEC Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Trouble is a fair amount of stuff is 'Lifed'. I was given a pile of componets, when I queired it I was told after three years the reliabilty was suspect, and would you trust the life of a man to a thrupenny component that might fail? The other problem is the bit might not fail but you keep a spare anyway, and it carries on till it is obsolete. Mind you I also got a big box of Wartime dated feild dressing that had ben stored for emergency use. :-D The MOD will never change their daft practices. In the seventies and eighties as an outsider visiting places like Ashchurch, Lugershall and particularly Hilton Park Derby. Warehouses filled with vehicles which were so out of date they could not be of use to a modern military. Rover 110's, 1940's 1 ton Austins, Coventry Victor baggage trucks, Lewin Road Sweepers,1940 Fire pumps, Neils Cranes, Bedford QL's Humber Super Snipe staff cars and Humber Radio Trucks. Some times I would hold my breath when opening a door, expecting to find a line of Sentinel Steam wagons. I am sure this was the norm of most, if not all CVD's and stores in the UK and abroad. The very worrying thing was that at that time you could, if you had a parts catalogue, order any of the items in storage in kit form. This was the scale of silliness that prevailed. One troubling thing I did note was that DUKW parts had all been repackaged with NATO part numbers to make them easier to locate when front line units required them? I would like to think that things had improved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RattlesnakeBob Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 I would like to think that things had improved. hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianscales Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 I also recall collecting vehicles from Ashchurch and Hilton during the seventies and eighties and having a wander around whilst waiting for said vehicles. I also remember the other end of the scale, Ruddington, where we disposed of vehicles. Anyhow ............ here's a picture (Admittedly not brilliant) taken a couple of weeks ago in Portsmouth dock with the Ark Royal in the background awaiting her fate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzkpfw-e Posted September 14, 2012 Author Share Posted September 14, 2012 Why was Harrier withdrawn? The most versatile and proven combat aircraft we have ever had. Rumour has it, the usual politicking amongst the top brass. The Tornado's so much more photogenic! Arguably, what is needed, is a cheap, turboprop COIN aircraft. Think of a British Pucara. Also, any money on us never getting our own jets for the carrier, Rafaels would fit soooo well on it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Didn't UK have a cheap COIN aircraft? The old Bulldog Primary trainer. The Biafaran's aremed them up and were very effective. There are also a number of survalliance version of the Islander, and supposedly a kight weight gun ship was sketched out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattie Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 Read this book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs by Lewis Page Author is ex RN his book covers it all from boots to aircraft carriers the shameful waste of tax payers money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
berna2vm Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 I would hate to see us buying Rafale. I cannot accept that we have to buy French aircraft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian L Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Went to Portsmouth on Saturday via the Gosport ferry & snapped these ships, is that the Ark Royal or has she now gone ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samc88 Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 Surely to God the Ark Royal is worth more than £3 million in its complete state??! An idea as they'd make a huge loss in selling it anyway would be have it as a national falklands war museum perhaps what does anyone else think? Sam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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