pebblebed

@TBrit90 @GenGJenkinsRM In addition also need to regain on board maintenance SQEP the artificers of old could fix anything now they rely on contractor support for even routine maintenance. This lack of SQEP also drives equipment mis use, which adds to maintenance burden so lengthening alongside time

@TBrit90 That's what you get when you hollow out the Civ Serv with no SQEP and delegate to risk adverse industry. Lots of lofty words from @GenGJenkinsRM but the permafrost is not melting . Need to try harder

Royal Navy major combatants status.

@thinkdefence Yes and no its not all shite. Home assistant and esphome. It allows me to design my own devices that work the way I want. on prem just use Internet to control certain things via a dmz. As a bonus I keep my engineering skills current as I'm only allowed to engineer people at work

Has anyone else gone down the smart home rabbit hole and at the end just thought nope, this is all shite, and ripped it out?.

@mirandadevine Boyd is the archetypal maverick and free thinker. His OODA loop methodology underpins all modern engineering techniques such Agile and DevSecOps and is part @elonmusk algorithm.

Amazing read about John Boyd, A profane, broke fighter pilot from Erie who designed the F-16, set fire to a general’s necktie, and wrote the plan for the second wave attack against Iran thirty years before it happened. "Sometime in the next several days, the President of the United States will sit in the Situation Room and decide whether to launch the second wave against Iran.... Iran is, in the language of military theory, in a degraded decision cycle. Their loop has slowed. Ours, perhaps, has not. That last sentence is the entire intellectual estate of a man who died of cancer in West Palm Beach twenty-nine years ago. He never made general... He is in the room with the President this week, whether the President knows it or not. His name is John Boyd, and Iran should be more afraid of his ghost than of our Tomahawks." You'll have to scroll halfway down to read about this remarkable man. open.substack.com/pub/charliepga…

@thinkdefence You no longer need programmes with hundreds of engineers. A team of 10 multi disciplined people can do the work hundreds in the past. Also need to drop def stans and adopt commercial equivalent standards

@thinkdefence The root of the issue is SQEP and money regardless of public vs private defence will not pay competitive salaries so even when we have taken bright young things once they are trained they leave. The military industrial enterprise needs to realise that the world has changed.

I'm of the opinion that we at least need to bring the defence establishments back, and even some manufacturing/support in public sector hands

@KNP_dan @AviationNews_UK For some reason the same destination and operator is double price from exeter. So I assume the owner or council are driving higher landing charges

@pebblebed @AviationNews_UK Airline demand drives airport expansion, not the other way around

Info | Bristol Airport has submitted its official planning application to the local council. If approved, the airport will be allowed to expand to 15 million passengers per year. Included in these plans is an extension to the runway, additional aircraft stands and more car parking spaces. The full planning application is linked below 👇 planning.n-somerset.gov.uk/online-applica…

@IBallantyn Also given the current stance on safety and risk adverse culture in the MoD autonomous surface and subsurface assets are decades away outside trial environments, let alone vehicles with effectors

Once the UK Govt drank the elixir of drones - a way to do without those expensive Type 26 warships, their seemingly too-hard-to-recruit people and costly weapons - and the Ukrainians 'beat a navy without a navy', it seized upon the 'hybrid navy' as the latest 'silver bullet' to avoid boosting defence properly. Yes, it is essential to have autonomous systems, but to reinforce the Royal Navy, not as a 'hybrid' means to dodge creating a proper fighting fleet. The Black Sea is not the Atlantic, a vast, mean treacherous ocean, and warships still matter. The Northern Fleet is the apex of Russian naval power, not a confined lesser force like the Black Sea Fleet. It is a tough mother that will eat you alive if it can. Norway is to get five T26s in some kind of joint operational arrangement with UK, but what if its govt decides one day that it does not agree with our defence and foreign policy? No can play UK...you are on your own! UK govts must stop contracting out sovereign defence needs. Six not eight RN T26s mean only two at sea at any one time and not until mid to late 2030s, if we are lucky. In war six is too few to sustain an effective presence in the Atlantic or absorb losses. Unless the UK thinks it can prevail with a tiny fleet too precious to deploy? But, there are the five cheaper Type 31s? Not an ASW ship, no matter its virtues. Australia is buildingng 6 x T26s - plus will have 11 Mogami frigates - and Canada is building 15 x T26s. More than the UK, the nation that created the alleged world's supposed greatest ASW ship, the as yet not in service T26. Until the UK Govt places an order for more T26s to replace those going to Norway then it is again failing on defence. The UK should actually build at least 12 T26s for the RN. And not just as a means to try and buy votes in Scotland with job creation, but because it is what the UK needs to be secure...and its navy needs a heck of a lot of other stuff too. Pronto. Stop being so timid and pathetic on defence @GOVUK

@NavyLookout @TheStoicSailor If they really want to understand they should go out as a sea rider while FOST are torturing you all with fire flood famine. In fact come to think of it, a bunch of SDA indecision makers to come along as well to realise the challenges due to current platform availability

@TheStoicSailor Fair play to PM for making the effort. The main advantage is not for the crew, rather it reminds him of the sacrifice involved and reassures people that govt (which includes plenty of unilateral disarmament enthusiasts) still recognises the importance of the deterrent.

We all bemoan the idea of hosting a VIP after such a stint sea, but it is the right thing to do in these cases. The PM meeting them on their return leg is smart, as it doesn't delay them seeing family. I also believe he has met every returning CASD boat, which should be admired

@thinkdefence Cut MOD by 2 thirds, IMHO that would stop the MOD CS wanting to micro manage industry and in turn would remove the need for industry man marking the CS. Removing this layer of permafrost would drive huge efficiencies. As per Parkinson law.

Anyone that advocates for more defence spending must seriously articulate where the money is coming from. We have huge debt, high taxation, and a weak economy.

@TBrit90 And add insult to injury I bet they had to scrub the whole boat down when all they wanted was to get off and hug their love ones. BZ to Crew and families for the sacrifices you have to make. A nation is very grateful

Its bad enough having to do a nearly 7 month patrol, but then you have to entertain Starmer when you arrive home.

@apoliticaleye Simple really we have governing class (both sides) that are from a legal background hence have supported freedom to protest and a socialist media that need to fill the 24 hour news cycle that emboldens those who want to protest

Just a couple of years ago I snapped this image. Sir Tony Radakin the then Chief of Defence Staff, the most senior military man in the UK; taking a casual stroll from Downing street to the Ministry of Defence building. Just days ago we saw his colleagues making a similar journey, but this time hounded and harassed by those protesting at foreign wars and for ideological obsession. Its hard not to reflect on how far and how rapidly society has collapsed and whether today he would be able to make that short walk with nothing more than a bloke with a camera to contend with.

@SheilaLWeir @RoyalNavy Crew and families thank you for sacrifices on behalf of the nation.

Vanguard-class submarine outbound from Faslane today. Choppy. @royalnavy #submarine #naval #shipping #firthofclyde

@MikeyDiMercurio Amazing how submariner get sea sick, double helpings of breakfast scran for this sea rider. The only meal that couldn't be messed up. 😀

People think submariners are immune from high seas. Not true. A surface run to the 100 fathom curve to submerge might take 13 hours. Try doing that in a hurricane. Unlike surface ships with their specially curved hulls that resist rolling too far, cylindrical sub hulls are not seaworthy by definition. Consider a long log with a railroad spike driven into it. The log will roll and keep rolling almost 90 degrees until the spike's distance from the center of gravity is big enough to cause the log to stop the roll and roll the other way. Same on a sub. You roll to port and keep rolling and rolling and rolling, until finally the roll stops and you just freeze there for endless nauseating seconds, then start slowly rolling to starboard and you roll and you roll and you roll and you roll... And bobbing through heavy seas, with the oddball rolling and pitching, the boat will make a corkscrew motion through the ocean. The only solution is to hit your bunky where the motion of the vessel rocks you like you're in a cradle. ZZZZZZ. But if you have to be awake and on your feet? Carry a plastic bag with you for the purpose of puking into it. Navy, in its wisdom, makes the plastic bags transparent. Fortunately, at 600 feet keel depth, it doesn't matter what's going on topside. Smooth as an office building floor.

@USN_Submariner Pet, Cambridge research machine, Z80, Oric, Archer 68000, CPC64, 8051, PIC 8086, S2010, S2074, S2054, S2076, CCSv3, ESP32, CCSv4

Where did you first hone your craft?

Given ruling it is becoming apparent that there are 2 distinct countries england and the metropolitan urban masses. Rural counties should stop incomers from the cities moving to the countryside. BBC News - Judge rules Dartmoor grazing not properly assessed bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

@SSN_685 I went for a swim as a civvy sea rider from a V boat steel beach. Very lucky, but sadly no photos

Swim call. Hopefully leaving no one behind! It was a pretty rare occurrence on an SSBN.

@ACINTRider @USN_Submariner @MikeyDiMercurio Best night's sleep on board, avoids upsetting the natives in the bunk spaces aka the black hole of calcutta.

@USN_Submariner @MikeyDiMercurio Shipmate be like “Got my old bunk back!”

I swear it was in here last night chief

@NavyLookout I assuming they have thought about the proximity of the public road and will be closing it during loading operations

MoD has submitted a planning application to upgrade Glen Mallan Jetty for nuclear submarine weapon loading capability while work is being done at RNAD Coulport to prepare for Dreadnought-class boats. Changes include new security fencing and a welfare building for staff.