Weapons shortages mean the UK's lead aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth isn't fully armed, says ex-Navy chief 🔴 DavidParsley50 reports:
left a re-arming in Scotland this week without its full capability was due to a “shortage of the weapons it needs”. insisted that the aircraft carrier was stocked with what the Royal Navy requested before she set sail on a month-long training mission on Thursday, Lord West maintained that the ship’s ability to operate fully had been compromised by a lack of investment that had left to supply issues.
Rather than the Queen Elizabeth embarking with fighter-bombers onboard, the Royal Navy is training with the F-35s flying in from RAF bases to practice manoeuvres, landing on and taking off from the largest Royal Navy ship ever built. Lord West added that the UK’s military force was in danger of “looking weak” to nations such as Russia and China if it’s flagship aircraft carrier cannot sail fully armed.
HMS Queen Elizabeth was in Glen Mallen, Scotland, for re-arming last week but left without fully stocked weapons Lord West also criticised the failure to install the powerful 30-mm DS30M Mk2 guns that the warship was originally designed to carry. While the mountings for the defensive weapons were built into the ship, the Royal Navy is no longer installing the guns.
“That’s been the problem. It has been just enough just-in-time, and that’s not a very clever way of doing stuff within the military.” Lord West added: “We should be in negotiations with defence firms – our own ones and international ones – so that they up their production of missiles and other hardware to war rates. So, they’re actually working 24/7 producing on the basis of a war economy.
The PM added that the UK was “working together with European partners and more broadly around the world” to ensure supply chains can “ramp up to the degree that we need them to”.“One thing we’ve discovered is the interoperability of all our pieces of kit is probably not as strong as it should be and could be. And that is a lesson for us to take away and improve going forward.
“Even as the stockpiles might be depleted, if they’re degrading Russian Armed Forces, they are increasing our security in the same way.” Ukrainian forces are believed to be firing more than 5,000 artillery rounds a day, while Russia is estimated to be consuming four times that amount as it seeks to hold or gain territory in the east of the country.
This number has fallen since the mid-1950s. In the financial year ending in 1956, the UK spent just under 8 per cent of GDP on defence and in 1980 the figure stood at 4.1 per cent.Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt said on Sunday that she is “confident” the Government will keep defence spending “strong.” HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are the largest and most powerful ships ever built for the Royal Navy.
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